Taipei, Sept. 20 (CNA) Taiwan took home silver medals after its men’s and women’s teams lost to their Japanese opponents in the team soft tennis finals at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday.

On the men’s side, doubles pair and brothers Chen Po-yi (陳柏邑) and Chen Yu-hsun (陳郁勲) were swept 5-0 in the final’s first match, while singles player Chang Yu-sung (張祐菘) lost 4-1 in match No. 2.

The 2-0 loss to Japan in only 54 minutes mirrored the result of the sides’ previous finals match-up at the 2022 Asian Games (played in 2023) in Hangzhou.

In the women’s team finals, meanwhile, Taiwan lost 2-1 to a Japanese team that had won gold in the past three Asian Games.

Taiwan’s one win in the match-up was by 22-year-old Asian Games newcomer Chiang Min-yu (江旻育), who defeated Ayaka Iwakura 4-1 in the singles portion of the final.

The silver medal finish tied the women’s soft tennis team’s best-ever performance at the Asian Games.

Team member Lo Shu-ting (羅舒婷), who previously said this Asian Games would be her “last dance” before retirement, told CNA she was proud of the result.

“I think we did great. I don’t have any regrets in my career,” Lo said, adding that going home with a medal “made it all worthwhile.”

Soft tennis

Soft tennis is a variety of tennis that originated in Japan. It is played on a standard tennis court, but with a soft rubber ball that flies slower and bounces lower than a tennis ball.

In the Asian Games, team soft tennis follows a best-of-three matches format, in which the first national team to win two matches wins.

The event sees two teams face off in a specific sequence: a first match (doubles) played in a best-of-nine games format, followed by a second match (singles) played as a best-of-seven.

If necessary, a third match (doubles) is played in a best-of-nine games format to decide the winner.

In terms of scoring, points are counted consecutively 1, 2, 3, 4, with the first player or doubles pair to reach 4 points winning the game. In cases where a game is tied 3-3 (a “deuce”), one side must gain a two-point advantage to win.

(By Chen Jung-chen and Matthew Mazzetta)

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