NAGOYA, Japan — South Korea lost to Japan in the semifinals of the women’s badminton team event at the Asian Games on Wednesday, settling for bronze in its gold medal defense. After losing the opening match, Japan won the next matches in a row to knock off South Korea 3-1 at Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium in Ichinomiya, just northwest of the main host city, Nagoya, Japan. With no third-place match, South Korea and Indonesia, the other semifinal loser, both received bronze medals. South 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 the women’s doubles, dropped their match against Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto 2-0 (21-15, 21-19). Baek and Lee had 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 dou
