South Korea ended China's hold on the Uber Cup with a 3-1 win in the 2026 final at Forum Horsens on May 3, denying the defending champions a third consecutive title and adding a third Uber Cup to the Korean trophy cabinet after a four-year wait.
The final delivered the headline that had been written across the entire knockout phase: world number one An Se-young dispatched Wang Zhi Yi 21-10, 21-13 in the opening singles, completing the tournament with an unblemished 8-0 record and a head-to-head against Wang that now reads 20-5. The 47-minute demolition set the tone for a Korean evening that had been built around the 24-year-old's individual brilliance.
China hit back in the first doubles, with Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning beating Lee So-hee and Jeong Na-eun 21-15, 21-12 in a 53-minute encounter that briefly suggested a comeback was on. Korea had no margin for error as the tie moved to its third match.
Kim Ga-eun handled that responsibility, defeating world champion Chen Yu Fei 21-19, 21-15 in 55 minutes to put Korea within a single rubber of the title. Chen, who had carried much of China's tournament across the previous week, was out-rallied in a tactical second game that Kim controlled from 7-7 onwards.
The decider was the second doubles, where Kim Hye-jeong and Baek Ha-na completed an 85-minute three-game victory over Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian, 16-21, 21-10, 21-13. The opening-game loss was the only set Korea dropped in the entire final.
For a Korean team that has spent the past four years rebuilding its women's pipeline behind An's individual rise, the trophy is the most significant team result for the country since the 2022 win in Bangkok. The 2010 title in Kuala Lumpur was the only previous Uber Cup victory in Korean history.
China's defeat is the bigger story in raw historical terms. The Asian giants now hold sixteen Uber Cup titles to Korea's three, a tally that places them well clear of any other nation, but the loss snaps a streak of dominance that had started to look structurally permanent. With Wang Zhi Yi unable to break An Se-young's grip, China was unable to bank an individual rubber that would have realistically tilted the tie.
The Horsens final had been built up across the week as a generational test of An's status. The 24-year-old had already won every BWF women's singles event of consequence over the past two seasons, but a team trophy had remained the conspicuous gap in her resume. Her 8-0 individual record across the Uber Cup fortnight closes that gap definitively.
Korea's path to the final included a dominant group stage and a quarter-final spread that placed the women's team in pole position from the early days of the competition. The semi-final had already despatched a previous tournament finalist before the final delivered the title.
By ending China's bid for a three-peat, Korea also resets the conversation around women's badminton heading into the 2027 season. The Uber Cup runs every two years and the next edition will be hosted in Asia, where Chinese form historically has performed strongest, but the trophy now sits in Seoul.
The celebrations in Horsens were uncomplicated. Korea's third Uber Cup is also their first in four years, and the country's queen is on top of every available list.
