Korean women's badminton team falls 3-1 to Japan, settles for bronze in title defense

Korea lost to Japan in the semifinals of the women's badminton team event at the Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 on Wednesday, settling for bronze in its gold medal defense.

After losing the opening match, Japan won three straight matches to knock off Korea 3-1 at Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium in Ichinomiya, just northwest of the main host city, Nagoya, Japan.

With no third-place match, Korea and Indonesia, the other semifinal loser, both received bronze medals.

Korea's lone match win against Japan came in the opening singles, where world No. 1 An Se-young defeated her longtime rival Akane Yamaguchi 2-1 (21-9, 18-21, 21-11).

However, Baek Hana and Lee So-hee, world No. 2 in women's doubles, dropped their match against Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto 2-0 (21-15, 21-19). Baek and Lee also lost their match in the quarterfinals against Malaysia.

Sim Yu-jin lost the next singles match to Tomoka Miyazaki by 2-0 (21-15, 21-14), before Jeong Na-eun and Kim Hye-jeong fell to Rin Uesaka and Kie Nakanishi 2-0 (22-20, 21-16) in what ended up being the last doubles match.

The individual competition in badminton will begin Friday in the men's and women's singles and doubles and in the mixed doubles.

An is trying to become the first women's singles player to win back-to-back Asian Games gold medals.

Yonhap