South Korea's An Se-young claimed a major victory in Southeast Asia to retain her women's singles title at the Singapore Badminton Open on Sunday.

She received a confidence boost just 55 days before her debut at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games when she defeated China's Chen Yufei 21-19, 16-21, 21-12.

The Olympic event will begin on Saturday 27 July 2024 and run until Monday 5 August 2024 at the Arena Porte de la Chapelle, an environmentally friendly venue with a capacity of 8,000. It will host the badminton events of the Olympic Games, then artistic gymnastics and, a month later, the Para-badminton and Para-taekwondo events of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

It was a victory that boosted the 22-year-old Gwangju native's confidence after a right knee injury kept her off the court for more than a month.

"This is definitely a timely boost for my confidence before the Olympics," An said after winning the title in Singapore. "There were many doubts about my form when I went through those difficult times.

"But I am very grateful to my team for also believing in me and our efforts have paid off," added An, who has won two medals at the World Badminton Championships, bronze in 2022 and gold in 2023.

The match was a repeat of last year's Asian Games final, where An also beat the Olympic gold medallist, and the 22-year-old again put up a strong fight against Chen.

An took the first game in 25 minutes, but Chen fought back to take the second before the defending champion's aggression and precise cross-court play secured another victory.

The South Korean leads the world rankings with 111,417 points from 16 tournaments, followed by China's Chen Yufei with 103,332 points from 18 tournaments and Spain's Carolina Marín with 93,736 points from 17 events. An will be looking to improve on her fifth place finish at Tokyo 2020 three years ago.

The Asian athlete will have no rest this week as she goes for a second Indonesia Open title after winning it in 2021. She kicks off her campaign on Wednesday against young Japanese player Tomoka Miyazaki.

World number two Shi Yuqi recovered from losing the first game to defeat fellow Chinese Li Shifeng 17-21, 21-19, 21-19 in the men's singles final.

"I am very happy with this win. Li put up a great fight and is a worthy opponent," said Shi.

"We are happy to have an all-China final and to have given the fans in Singapore an entertaining match," said Shi, who will be the main rival of Denmark's Viktor Axelsen (world number one), the reigning European, World and Olympic champion.