Wang Zhiyi admitted that all women's singles are chasing and impacting An Xiying, "only keep impacting"

Although she won her first title of the year at the 2025 Malaysia Badminton Super 500 Championship, China's world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi will have to fight for more titles in the future, especially in higher-level tournaments, and must overcome South Korea's world No. 1 An Se Ying, who is currently the biggest challenge of all women's singles in the world.

Wang Zhiyi (left) admits that all women's singles are now chasing and impacting An Xiying

In the Women's Singles final of last week's Malaysia Masters, Wang defeated world No. 3 teammate Han Yue 13-21, 21-13, 21-18 to win the title for the first time in five months after the BWF World Tour Finals last December. As a result, Wang Zhiyi became the first Chinese women's singles title to defend her title at the Malaysia Masters, and the only Chinese women's singles champion to win two consecutive titles at the tournament after Thailand's Rachano in 2018 and 2019.

If you want to fight for more championships, you have to defeat An Xiying. Wang Zhiyi said that she was very happy and excited to finally win the first championship of this year. However, she also knows that if she wants to win more titles in the future, she will have to beat the Olympic champion and world champion An Seying. This is the third time that Wang has reached the final this year, the first two being the highest level of the Malaysia Super 1000 and the All England Championships, but she lost to Ahn Se Ying in the final. Counting the Sudirman Cup finals, Wang Zhiyi has won all 3 finals against An Xiying this year, but all of them were defeated. The two have met 15 times so far, and Wang Zhiyi has only won 4.

Ahn Se-ying has won all 25 matches this year. An Se Ying has competed in five tournaments so far this year (including the Sudirman Cup) and has won all 25 of her matches, maintaining a 100% win rate, winning the Malaysia Super 1000, All England, India Super 750 and Orleans Super 300.

At the All England Championships, An Seying defeated China's former Olympic champion Chen Yufei (world No. 5), Japan's former world champion Akane Yamaguchi (world No. 4) and two-time Asian champion Wang Zhiyi from the top 8 to the final, which shows how strong the strength is. This also makes the current world badminton show a fact that only the events that An Xiying did not participate in, the rest of the women's singles have a chance to win the championship. In an interview after winning the Malaysia Open in January this year, An Se Ying said that one of her goals this season is to surpass her record of 10 titles set in 2023.

said that An Xiying is the target of the women's singles. In this regard, Wang Zhiyi said: "An Xiying's condition this year is indeed very good, she has a lot of excellent quality and worth learning from. Of course, she is also a goal for us to learn, and it is also a goal for us to impact. For me, I will still play one game at a time, do a good job in the process of each game, and then seek more to improve and break through myself. ”

Wang Zhiyi also echoed the statement of former two-time world champion Akane Yamaguchi that the women's singles world is now in a situation of catching up with An Seying, saying: "I think we are like this now, because she can stay at a very high level for a long time, and each of us is in a position to impact when we play her, but I think having such a very strong opponent is a good thing for us to continue to seek improvement." ”