Top two women's seeds also win semis as Viktor Axelsen qualifies for the Malaysia Open championship game.

 At the first BWF World Tour tournament of 2023, An Se-Young and Yamaguchi Akane won their respective women's semi-final matches, setting up a matchup between Denmark's Axelsen and Naraoka Kodai in Kuala Lumpur.

                                               At the first BWF World Tour tournament of 2023

Viktor Axelsen, the No. 1 seed and Olympic champion, won the Malaysia Open badminton semifinal match in straight sets on Saturday (14 January).

The Dane qualified for the men's singles final by defeating Japanese opponent Tsuneyama Kanta 21-7, 21-15.

It's a new record for Axelsen to reach nine consecutive finals in BWF Super 1000 level competitions.

In Kuala Lumpur, he will compete for the crown against another Japanese shuttler named Naraoka Kodai. In the other semifinal, Naraoka defeated Thailand's Kunlavut Vitidsarn 21-17, 19-21, 21-17.

The top two seeds in the Malaysia Open women's singles final will compete.

Japanese athlete Yamaguchi Akane, ranked number one, defeated Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei. The final score was 21-18, 21-16.

An Se-Young of the People's Republic of Korea, the second seed, defeated Chen Yu Fei of China, the fourth seed, in a dramatic earlier semifinal, winning 21-12, 19-21, 21-9.

On Sunday, the first BWF World Tour competition of 2023 features the finals.