New Delhi: Indian boys showed tremendous resilience but failed to add that final punch and went down 2-3 against Japan in the quarter finals of the 10th Asian junior table tennis championship here on Tuesday.

The winners will now take on Korea while defending champions Chinese Taipei will face world champions China.

In the opening rubber, world No. 4 Selya Kishikawa lost the first game but was never under pressure and registered a comfortable 8-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-7 win.

But Indian captain Arunava Ganguly had some different plans as he went on the offensive from the word go against world No. 16 Jun Mizutani. The Indian dominated his higher ranked opponent to take the rubber 11-6, 11-7, 9-11, 11-8 and level the scores.

South Asian junior champion R. Abhishek then won the third rubber against Tatsuya Ono 17-15, 11-8, 9-11, 13-11 to give the hosts a 2-1 lead.

Kishikawa returned to the table determined to give no space to Ganguly, who took the fourth rubber 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 to level the scores.

In the decider, it was the experience of Mizutani which made the difference as Das missed some simple shots during the big points and went down 8-11, 9-11, 5-11.