By World Baseball Softball Confederation, www.wbsc.org
The Road to Tokyo 2020 is set to begin for the Asian Continent nations, with the start of the 2019 Asia Cup Women’s Softball Championship in Jakarta, Indonesia. A total of 10 teams will be competing in the event, slated to be played from 1-7 May at the Gelora Bung Karno’s Softball Stadium.
The event will serve as a qualifier for the WBSC Softball Asia/Oceania 2019 Qualifying Event for the XXXII Games of the Olympiad, Tokyo 2020. The top six teams in Jakarta (not named Japan, host of the Games) will advance to the final Olympic qualifier, to be played in Shanghai, China, from 24-29 September. Only the winner of this event will be present in the historic softball return to the Olympic Programme.
World No. 2 Japan, six-time champion, have been drawn in Group A together with No. 8 China, No. 23 Korea, No. 27 India and No. 51 Thailand.
In Group B are four-time runner-up No. 6 Chinese Taipei, No. 13 Philippines (champions in 1972 and last year’s losing finalist to Japan), No. 37 Indonesia, No. 42 Hong Kong and No. 50 Singapore.
The three-day groups stage begins on Wednesday (1 May), with a total of eight games. The top four teams of each group will advance to the single elimination playoffs, starting on Saturday 4 May. The Asia Cup Final and the Bronze Medal Game are slated to be played on Tuesday, 7 May.
SCHEDULE
Wednesday, 1 May
| TIME | FIELD | GAME | |||
| 8:30 | 1 | JPN | THA | ||
| 2 | PHI | SIN | |||
| 10:45 | 1 | CHN | IND | ||
| 2 | TPE | INA | |||
| 14:00 | 1 | KOR | JPN | ||
| 2 | HKG | PHI | |||
| 16:15 | 1 | IND | THA | ||
| 2 | INA | SIN | |||
Thursday, 2 May
| TIME | FIELD | GAME | |||
| 8:30 | 1 | TPE | HKG | ||
| 2 | CHN | KOR | |||
| 10:45 | 1 | INA | PHI | ||
| 2 | JPN | IND | |||
| 15:00 | 1 | SIN | TPE | ||
| 2 | CHN | THA | |||
Friday, 3 May
| TIME | FIELD | GAME | |||
| 8:30 | 1 | HKG | INA | ||
| 2 | KOR | IND | |||
| 10:45 | 1 | JPN | CHN | ||
| 2 | PHI | TPE | |||
| 15:00 | 1 | THA | KOR | ||
| 2 | HKG | SIN | |||
Saturday, 4 May – PLAYOFFS
| TIME | FIELD | GAME | ||||
| 8:30 | PO1 | 1 | B4 | A1 | ||
| PO2 | 2 | B3 | A2 | |||
| 10:45 | PO3 | 1 | A3 | B2 | ||
| PO4 | 2 | A4 | B1 | |||
| 15:00 | 9-10 | 1 | A5 | B5 | ||
Sunday, 5 May
| TIME | FIELD | GAME | ||||
| 8:30 | PPO1 | 1 | L PO1 | L PO4 | ||
| PPO2 | 2 | L PO2 | L PO3 | |||
| 10:45 | SPO1 | 1 | W PO1 | W PO3 | ||
| SPO2 | 2 | W PO4 | W PO2 | |||
| 15:00 | 5-6 | 1 | W PP01 | W PP02 | ||
| 7-8 | 2 | L PP01 | L PP02 | |||
Tuesday, 7 May
| TIME | FIELD | GAME | ||||
| 8:30 | Bronze | 1 | L SPO1 | L SPO2 | ||
| 11:30 | Final | 1 | W SPO1 | W SPO2 | ||