South Korea edged out Japan 2-1 to defend their title in the Asian Games soft tennis women's team final here at the khalifa Soft Tennis Courts on Sunday.

The defending champions needed two hours and 25 minutes to outlast the Japanese, revenging their final loss to Japanese at the 2005 East Asian Games at Macao, China.

"We have to make a restart. Now I feel really disappointed. We are a good team, but we couldn't make it," said Japanese coach Masaharu Watanabe at the Khalifa Soft Tennis Courts.

"We felt the pressure for being the favourites for the gold after having won the 2005 East Asian Games. I expect that my team will do better in the doubles and singles events," he added.

South Korea's singles player Kim Kyung Ryun kept their defending hopes alive by winning a thrilling second rubber after South Korea' s first doubles lost.

Kim, 20, came from three games down to chalk up an impressive win over Japanese Miwa Tsuji at 4-3 after winning the tie-breaking seventh game at 7-5.

The following second doubles match also witnessed the tie break, where South Korea's Kim Ji Eun and Lee Kyung Pyo outlasted their opponents at 7-1 before they secured the third rubber at 5-4.

In the first doubles match, Japanese Harumi Gyokusen/Ayumi Ueshima made short work of Min Soo Kyoung/Lee Bok Soon 5-2.

"The wind affected us a lot, so we had to play a slower game," said Min Soo Kyoung after the match.

"We are very happy with the win. We were a little bit disappointed when we lost the first doubles but we fought hard and won the title."

In the bronze medal match, China found no ground strokes while facing Chinese Taipei before losing the match 2-0.