Men's badminton team settle for bronze after grueling 5-hour semifinal

Korean badminton player Lee Yun-gyu competes in the men's team semifinal at the Hangzhou Asian Games held at Binjiang Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China on Saturday. [NEWS1]

The Korean men’s badminton team secured a bronze medal after losing 3-2 to India in a grueling five-hour semifinal at the Hangzhou Asian Games on Saturday, winning Korea’s first medal in badminton at the Asiad.

In Asian Games badminton, a loser in the semifinals wins an automatic bronze. Two teams play two doubles and three singles matches in Asiad badminton team contests.

Saturday’s contest was neck-and-neck throughout the entire five hours, with both sides taking a win and loss alternately.

Jeon Hyeok-jin was the one to start for Korea, taking on Haseena Sunil Kumar Prannoy in the singles match at Binjiang Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China.

He suffered a 2-1 loss and passed the baton to Seo Seung-jae and Kang Min-hyuk, who faced Rankireddy Satwik Sairaj and Shetty Chirag Chandrashekhar in the doubles match.

Seo and Kang bounced back for Korea, grabbing a 2-0 victory, but Lee Yun-gyu failed to ride that momentum in the following singles match, suffering a 2-0 loss to Sen Lakshya.

Kim Won-ho and Na Sung-seung, however, reignited Korea’s hope of reaching the final, beating Madathil Ramachandran Arjun and Kapila Dhruv 2-0 in the following doubles match.

It came down to whether Cho Geon-yeop could defeat Kidambi Srikanth Nammalwar in the last singles match.

Cho won the first game 21-12, but lost the second game 21-16 and third game 21-14, losing the match 2-1 and ending the contest 3-2.

Korea is guaranteed to win either a silver or gold in badminton at the Asiad, however, as the women’s team reached the final after beating Thailand 3-1 earlier in the day.

The women’s team final will take place on Sunday.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]