▲ South Korea's Hwang Jeong-mi competes against North Korea's Ri Jin-mi in the women's singles quarterfinals of soft tennis at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Japan on the 23rd.
South Korea's soft tennis team, long considered a reliable source of gold medals at the Asian Games, finished a tournament without a single gold medal for the first time in 32 years since the sport became an official event at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Games.
The South Korean soft tennis national team earned three bronze medals across five events held at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Nagoya, Japan, from the 18th to the 23rd.
Both the men's and women's national teams suffered 1-2 match defeats to Chinese Taipei in the team event semifinals on the 20th, claiming bronze medals.
Park Jae-gyu (Eumseong County Office) and Kim Yeon-hwa (Anseong City Hall) lost 1-5 to Japan's Toshiki Uematsu and Rena Denma in the mixed doubles semifinals on the 21st, taking home the bronze.
South Korea, which had set a goal of winning up to three gold medals, failed to add to its medal count as all three men's and women's singles players who reached the quarterfinals on the final day were eliminated.
This marks the first time South Korea has failed to win a single gold medal in soft tennis since the sport was adopted as an official discipline at the 1994 Hiroshima Games.
South Korea swept all available gold medals at the 2002 Busan and 2014 Incheon Games, and had secured at least one gold medal at every tournament up to the 2022 Hangzhou Games.
Missing out on gold in both the men's and women's singles events also marks the first time in 20 years since the 2006 Doha Games.
Regretful moments continued in the singles events on the 23rd, the final day of the competition.
Hwang Jeong-mi (NH Nonghyup Bank), who finished first in the women's singles national team selection trials this year, lost 2-4 (1-4, 2-4, 4-1, 4-0, 3-5, 2-4) in game score to North Korea's Ri Jin-mi in the women's singles quarterfinals.
After dropping the first two games, she won the third and fourth consecutively to level the match, but lost the next two games, missing out on a spot in the semifinals and a guaranteed bronze medal.
Lee Su-jin (Okcheon County Office) also lost 2-4 to Japan's Denma in the quarterfinals, while men's singles player Lee Ha-neul (Suncheon City Hall) was defeated 2-4 by Chinese Taipei's Chen Po-yi.
Another men's singles entrant, Kim Jin-woong (Suwon City Hall), was eliminated in the preliminary rounds.
North Korea's Ri Jin-mi, who defeated Hwang Jeong-mi in the quarterfinals, lost 3-4 to Denma in the final to take the silver medal.
Ri's silver medal is the highest-ever performance by North Korea in soft tennis at the Asian Games.
North Korea's Ri So-hyang also won a bronze medal in the women's singles.
Having received results that fell short of expectations in a traditionally strong sport, South Korea's soft tennis team faces the task of regrouping its strength to reclaim its status at the top of Asia.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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