Nagoya: South Korea clinched the bronze medal in the women's team event in soft tennis at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, marking its first medal in the sport at this year's competition.
According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea faced a tough challenge against Chinese Taipei, falling 2-1 in the semifinals at the Nagoya City Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Nagoya, central Japan. The format of the competition does not include a bronze medal contest, which resulted in both semifinal losers, South Korea and the Philippines, being awarded bronze medals. The Philippines had earlier lost to Japan.
The team matches followed a best-of-three format, with two doubles matches and one singles match. In the opening doubles match, South Korea's Lee Su-jin and Kim Han-sul were narrowly defeated by Chinese Taipei's Hsu Chiao-ying and Huang Shih-yuan 5-4. South Korea's Hwang Jeong-mi then rallied from a 3-2 deficit to overcome Chiang Min-yu 4-3 in the singles match. However, in the decisive doubles match, Eom Ye-jin and Kim Yeon-hwa lost 5-4 to Zhou Yan-zhen and Lo Shu-ting.
Meanwhile, the South Korean men's team was also set to compete against Chinese Taipei in their team semifinals later on Sunday.