Badminton's reigning queen An Se-young, 24, of Samsung Life Insurance has rewritten the history of world badminton.
The Badminton World Federation said on the 19th, Korea time, that An captured her 47th career international women's singles title at the Denmark Open, which concluded the previous day, breaking the all-time record for most career victories.
The previous record holder was Indonesia's Susi Susanti, often called a badminton legend, with 46 titles, according to the BWF. Carolina Marin of Spain ranks third with 39.
The BWF counts only singles titles won since 1999, when official record-keeping began. Team competitions such as the Uber Cup, the world women's team championship, and the Asian team championships are excluded, with only individual results counted. The tally includes not only BWF World Tour events but also the Asian Games, where An became the first woman to win back-to-back singles gold.
Ranked No. 1 in the world this season, An has established herself as the undisputed force in women's singles. She has compiled a record of 61 wins and one loss in 62 matches, a winning rate of 98.4%, and has claimed eight titles from the nine individual events she entered. Her only blemish came in March, when she took silver after losing to China's Wang Zhiyi, ranked second, in the All England Open final.
Having surpassed a legend, An is now chasing another milestone: the record for most titles in a single season. She won 11 international events in 2025, matching the combined men's and women's singles record for a single season set by Japan's Kento Momota in 2019.
With nine titles this year through the Denmark Open, three more victories in the remainder of the season would give her 12 and sole possession of a new record.
Her next stop is the French Open, which runs from the 20th to the 25th in Paris. A title there would be her 10th of the season.