India slumped to a 1-2 defeat at the hands of defending champions China in their last round-robin match but still qualified for the bronze medal play-off game against Japan in the women’s hockey competitions of the Asian Games here today.

With three wins and as many defeats, the Surinder Kaur-led side finished its round-robin league proceedings at fourth position with nine points and will get a chance to defend its bronze medal, which they earned four years ago in Doha.

China topped the table with 16 points and will now take on Korea in the gold medal clash on Wednesday while India will fight it out with third place finishers and last edition’s silver medallist Japan for the bronze.

Incidentally, Wednesday’s match will give the Indian eves an opportunity to avenge their 0-3 loss to Japan in the league stages.

Against China Monday, the Indians played far from impressive hockey and trailed the home team for most part of the match.

As expected, China surged ahead in the 27th minute through a field goal from Zhishuang Wang before Xiaoxu Xu made it 2-0 with another field strike three minutes later, to go into the breather with a comfortable lead.

Down by two goals, the Indians came out with more purpose in the second half but goals eluded them till the 65th minute, when they were awarded a penalty stroke and captain Surinder made no mistake in reducing the margin.

But that was all India could manage in the match as they hardly got any chance to go for the equaliser in the last five minutes of the match.