Pakistan’s men’s squash team confirmed at least a bronze medal at the Asian Games on Wednesday, booking their semi-final spot with a straight-sets win over South Korea, while the women’s team saw their campaign end with a round-robin defeat to China at the Nagoya Kinjo Futo Arena.

Pakistan’s men swept South Korea 2-0 in their quarter-final without needing a deciding rubber.

Mohammad Ashab Irfan set the tone in the opening match against Na Jooyoung, needing all three games but rarely looking troubled.

The 22-year-old traded early points with his 19-year-old opponent before surging to a 7-2 lead in the first game, eventually closing it out 11-5 in nine minutes.

The second followed a similar script — Jooyoung twice clawed his way back to within a couple of points, only for Ashab to restore his cushion each time and seal it 11-8.

The Korean threatened a fightback in the third, pulling back three points as Ashab served for the match, but the Pakistani finally converted on his fourth attempt to complete an 11-5, 11-8, 11-8 win in just under half an hour and put Pakistan 1-0 up.

Pakistan’s top-ranked player, Noor Zaman, then had the chance to seal the tie against Seojin Oh, and made light work of it despite a scare in the third game.

The world No. 33 raced through the first game 11-4 in six minutes and followed it with an equally comfortable 11-5 in the second, building leads of four points or more in both.

Oh, 20, produced his best squash of the tie in the third, fighting back from 8-7 down to level and then snatching the game 11-8 to keep Korean hopes alive.

But Noor responded immediately in the fourth, racing into a four-point lead and reeling off seven straight points to close it out 11-2 — sealing both the match and a 2-0 win for Pakistan without the tie needing to go the distance.

Noor and Ashab have already secured bronze medal in the singles event.

The result sends Pakistan through to face Hong Kong, who defeated Qatar in the other quarter-final, in Thursday’s semi-final.

There was no such reward for Pakistan’s women, who went down 2-1 to China in their second round-robin qualifier — a defeat that followed an opening 3-0 loss to Macau in the same play-off group and ends their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals.

Pakistan had finished third in their four-team pool behind Hong Kong and South Korea, dropping them into a round-robin decider against China and Macau for the tournament’s remaining two quarter-final berths.

Wednesday’s tie followed the same pattern as their first: an early loss in the opening singles, a spirited fightback in the middle match, and a decider that ultimately slipped away.

Thirteen-year-old Mahnoor Ali opened proceedings against Ziyi Liu and never found her rhythm.

The 19-year-old Chinese player raced through the first game in five minutes, winning it 11-4, before edging a tighter second 11-8.

Liu pulled away in the decider, building an early six-point cushion that Mahnoor could only intermittently interrupt, and closed out the match 11-2 to hand China a 1-0 lead in the tie.

Sana Bahadar dragged Pakistan level with the standout performance of the day, overcoming Yuning Zhang in three hard-fought games.

The 20-year-old built an early 7-2 cushion in the first before Zhang, also 20, rallied to within three points; Sana held her nerve to close it out 11-7 on her second match point.

The second game swung repeatedly — the pair traded the lead seven times before Sana, trailing 9-6, reeled off three straight points to level at 9-9 and then closed it out 11-9.

Any hope of a Chinese recovery in the third evaporated as Sana, after trading the opening two points, won eight in a row to seal the game 11-2 and level the tie at 1-1.

The contest came down to a decider between 14-year-old Sehrish Ali and Ziyuan Yin, and China’s teenager proved too strong.

Yin, 14, surged to an early lead in the first game and closed it out 11-3, then weathered a mid-game wobble in the second — Sehrish had narrowed the gap to 9-5 — before finishing it 11-7.

The Pakistani teenager briefly led in the decider, but Yin responded with a burst of consecutive points to pull clear and served out the match 11-2, sealing a 2-1 win for China.

At the Aichi Prefecture General Shooting Gallery, Pakistan’s Ghulam Mustafa Bashir sits eighth in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol qualification after a strong opening stage on Wednesday.

Bashir scored 289 with eight inner tens across his 30 shots, posting series scores of 95 (8 seconds), 96 (6 seconds) and 98 (4 seconds).

The three-time Olympian, who won bronze at the 2022 ISSF World Championships in Cairo, now faces Stage 2 on Thursday — another 30 shots that will determine his final qualification score out of 600 and whether he advances to the final.