The first foreign coach, baton softball national team, will depart for Xi'an on the 12th to participate in the 2025 Asian Cup
Jul 11, 2025
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The national team, led by head coach Atsushi Kumon, will compete in the '2025 Women's Softball Asia Cup' to be held at Xian Sports University Softball Stadium in China from the 14th to the 20th.
This Asian Cup is a competition that combines the 2026 Aichi and Nagoya Asian Games qualifiers and the 2026 Women's Softball World Cup group stage Asian qualifiers. The Asian Games will be given the right to play up to 8th place and the World Cup group stage will be given the right to play up to 3rd place.
It is an important stage that will determine the success or failure of Korean softball on the international stage in the future. A total of 10 countries, including Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Japan, China, Thailand, the Philippines, and Hong Kong, will participate. A total of 45 games will be played in a full league manner. After that, the first and second teams in the preliminary round will clash in the final, and the third and fourth teams will determine the final ranking through the third-place match.
Starting with the first match against Singapore at 2 p.m. on the 14th, South Korea will face the Philippines and Taiwan on the 15th, Hong Kong and Thailand on the 16th, China and Japan on the 17th, India on the 18th, and Malaysia on the 19th. On the 20th, the final and the third-place match will be held.
The national team has improved its sense of practice through a practice match between Japan's excellent university teams (Hwan Pacific University, Sonoda University, etc.) and Japan's business team (SG Holdings) at the off-season training in Japan in June, and a joint training session hosted by the Japanese business team (Io Bank Vertz) at Jincheon National Training Center in early July.
In particular, expectations are growing for the performance of the tournament as it is the first international competition since Korean softball coach Atsushi Kumon took office.
The national team plans to adapt to the local area through practice at the official stadium on the 13th, a day before the competition.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.