[서울=뉴시스]Reporter Park Yun-seo = The Korean badminton team will challenge for the championship at the 2026 Asian Men’s and Women’s Team Championships.
The Korean badminton team departed for Qingdao, China, the venue for the 2026 Asian Men’s and Women’s Team Badminton Championships, through Incheon International Airport on the afternoon of the 1st.
This tournament, held every two years, is held as a national competition and consists of three singles matches and two doubles matches to determine the winner in a best-of-five series.
In the finals, there will be a group stage and the top two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals. Afterwards, the winning team will be determined through a quarterfinal tournament.
Korean men’s and women’s badminton teams must advance to the semifinals or higher in this tournament, which will be held from the 3rd to the 8th, to qualify for the finals of the World Men’s Team Championship (Thomas Cup) and World Women’s Team Championship (Uber Cup) to be held in Denmark in April.
Korea has yet to experience victory in this competition. The women’s national team had to be satisfied with second place in 2020 and 2022, while the men’s national team’s best performance was reaching the semifinals four times.
The women’s national team, featuring Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance), the ‘world’s best’ in women’s singles, is determined to take the top spot in this tournament.
Women’s singles world No. 1 Ahn Se-young, who won the Malaysia Open and India Open this year, as well as world No. 3 women’s doubles pair Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee (Incheon International Airport), world 5th-ranked Kim Hye-jung (Samsung Life Insurance) and Kong Hee-yong (Jeonbuk Bank) will participate.
The women’s national team competes in Group Z against Taiwan and Singapore.
The men’s national team cannot operate at full strength.
As Seo Seung-jae did not fully recover from the shoulder injury he suffered at the Malaysia Open last month, the men’s doubles world number one pair of Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae (hereinafter referred to as Samsung Life Insurance) was unable to participate.
Kim Won-ho, who is showing off his advanced skills in doubles, should play his role by pairing up with another player. At the same time, the shoulders of the world’s 15th-ranked men’s doubles team, Kang Min-hyuk (Korean Army Athletic Corps) and Ki Dong-ju (Incheon International Airport), also felt heavy.
The men’s national team was placed in Group B with Taiwan and Hong Kong.
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