Women’s badminton world number one An Seyoung continued her fine form as the BWF World Tour season resumed on Tuesday (15 July) with the BWF Japan Open 2025 in Tokyo.
The Republic of Korea’s An, who has won five of her six World Tour tournaments this year, needed just 38 minutes to see off Thai opponent Ratchanok Intanon.
A spell of seven consecutive points in each game took the wind out of Ratchanok’s sails as An breezed to a quick 21-14, 21-11 victory.
She meets compatriot Kim Ga-eun in the last 16 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, with the meeting set for Thursday.
The Japan Open is available to stream on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and the Olympics app from the quarter-finals onwards (geographical restrictions apply).
However, there was differing luck for the men’s top seed and world number one, Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand.
Facing Weng Hongyang of the People’s Republic of China, Olympic silver medallist Kunlavut found himself trailing by five at 6-11 in the first game before clawing the deficit back to a single point at 11-12.
But from there, Weng rallied off seven points in a row before closing out to take it 21-13.
Weng also had a six-point lead in the second at 13-7, and although Kunlavut once more managed to narrow the gap to a single point, Weng saw out the second game to register a 21-13, 21-19 victory.
Kunlavut wasn’t the only men’s seed to fall on the opening day as fourth seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia also crashed out.
Christie, facing home shuttler Nishimoto Kenta, was despatched 13-21, 12-21 in just 45 minutes.