Lee Yong-dae

Lee Yong-dae (Hangul: 이용대; Hanja: 李龍大; ; born 11 September 1988) is a professional badminton player from South Korea who had been successful in both men's and mixed doubles.

He reached world number 1 ranking with 4 different partners, Jung Jae-sung, Ko Sung-hyun and Yoo Yeon-seong in men's doubles, and Lee Hyo-jung in mixed doubles.

He won a total of 43 Superseries titles, 37 in the men's doubles, the most of any doubles player in one discipline, and 6 in mixed doubles.

He was ranked world number 1 in men's doubles for 117 consecutive weeks with his last partner, Yoo Yeon-seong.

When he first began competing internationally, in 2003, he was a member of the Hwasun Middle School team, then he was with Hwasun Vocational High School until the end of his junior days in 2006, before joining the Samsung Electromechanics team in 2006.

He joined the national badminton team of South Korea in 2003, at the age of 15 years.

Lee participated in the OCBC/Yonex US Open, where he played in both the singles and doubles category.

In both events, he was ousted in the second round.

Lee started off 2004 with the French Open International, where he played in the singles, men's doubles (with Jung Jung-young) and mixed doubles (with Kang Hae-won).

In the mixed doubles event, the pair managed to reach the semi-finals, before losing to the Russians.

He participated in several other tournaments without any major results.

At the Vietnam Satellite, he reached the quarter-finals in the mixed doubles category, partnering Oh Seul-ki.

Still struggling to find the right partner, he played several tournaments without getting any big results.

However, he did reach the finals of the Cheers Asian Satellite in the mixed and men's doubles category.

He won the gold medals at the Asian Junior Championships in the boys' doubles, mixed doubles and team events.

In July, Lee repeated his achievements at the Asian Junior by capturing three gold medals at the Championships held in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where he played a pivotal role to secure the boys' doubles and mixed doubles victories for South Korea and frustrate Malaysia in the mixed team final.

In November, Lee made another gold medal hat trick at the World Junior Championships where he led team Korea to their first world junior championship, never dropping a single set in boys' doubles, mixed doubles and mixed team event through the tournament.

Lee won two title at the Thailand Open in the men's doubles with Jung Jae-sung and mixed doubles with Ha Jung-eun.

At the Asian Games, Lee and Jung became bronze medalist after losing the semi-finals to Luluk Hadiyanto and Alvent Yulianto of Indonesia in the individual men's doubles event.

In the team event, South Korea lost to China in the final 2–3, thus gaining Lee a silver medal.

In January, Lee and Jung participated in the Malaysia Open, the first ever BWF Super Series event.

There they got through the first round but had to resign from the tournament due to injury.

However a week later they blew away competition to take the first prize at the Korea Open.

On top of that, Lee also won the mixed doubles with Lee Hyo-jung.

Lee and Jung lost to Hwang Ji-man and Lee Jae-jin in the final of the German Open; in mixed doubles Lee and Lee Hyo-jung lost to Zheng Bo and Gao Ling of China in the semi-finals.

Zheng and Gao went on to win the tournament.

At the Swiss Open, Lee and Lee Hyo-jung took another title, winning the final in three games.

For the rest of the year there were no good results in mixed doubles for Lee, mainly because he didn't participate or played with another partner.

In men's doubles, he and Jung were eliminated in a disappointing second round.

Lee participated in the 2007 Sudirman Cup with the South Korea team.

The team lost to China in the semi-finals with a score of 0–3.

In July, after a period of disappointing results in men's doubles, Lee became runner-up with Jung at the Thailand Open, losing to Hwang Ji-man and Lee Jae-jin.

Not much later, the pair went on to take the silver medal in the 2007 BWF World Championships.

They were defeated in the final by Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia, 19–21, 19–21.

In mixed doubles, Lee reached the third round with Lee Hyo-jung.

There they lost to Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms of England in three games.

With Jung Jae-sung, the rest of the year also resulted in quite disappointing achievements, as he failed to pass the quarterfinals in any major events, except in the French Open.

After winning the 2016 Korean Superseries with Yoo, Lee announced his retirement from international badminton.

He made a comeback to the international stage at the end of 2017, and started a new partnership with Kim Gi-jung in 2018.

Lee started playing badminton at his local elementary school at the age of 8, taking up the sport to lose weight.