▲ Park Jae-gyu and Kim Yeon-hwa in action during the quarterfinals
Park Jae-gyu (Eumseong County Office) and Kim Yeon-hwa (Anseong City Hall) have claimed a bronze medal in the soft tennis mixed doubles at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
The Park and Kim pair lost to Japan's Uematsu Toshiki and Temma Rena with a match score of 1-5 (5-7, 4-1, 4-6, 1-4, 3-5, 1-4) in 32 minutes during the mixed doubles semifinal held at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Nagoya, Japan, on September 21.
Because the soft tennis event awards bronze medals to both losing teams in the semifinals without a third-place playoff, Park and Kim secured the bronze.
Park and Kim struggled against the Uematsu and Temma pair, who are widely regarded as the best in the world.
After conceding the first set, they leveled the score in the second, but dropped four consecutive sets, failing to overcome Uematsu and Temma.
Meanwhile, Kim Hyun-soo (Daejeon Dong-gu Office) and Soojin (Okcheon County Office), who also competed in the mixed doubles that day, lost 1-5 to Japan's Maruyama Kaito and Maeda Rio in the quarterfinals, failing to medal.
(Photo courtesy of the Korea Soft Tennis Association, Yonhap News)
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