Japan, China and South Korea were neck-and-neck on the final day of Asian Games' judo competition with just four golds left to be decided.

Japan's meltdown in the first three days of competition in its native sport has left the field wide open, with the top three countries tied going into Tuesday's competition at three golds apiece. Mongolia has two, and North Korea one.

Japan's team, riddled by injuries and absences, hit a new low on the judo mats Monday, failing to win a single gold and competing in only two finals, where they were swiftly dispatched.

China's Xu Yan took only nine seconds to take down Aiko Sato, a four-time World Cup medalist, in the under-57-kilogram class and Masahiro Takamatsu was thrown to defeat just 1 minute, 33 seconds into his bout against South Korea's Lee Won-hee, a gold medalist at the Athens Olympics, in the under-73-kilogram division.

"I didn't expect to get the gold medal so quickly," Xu said, adding that she is already setting her sights on winning in Beijing.

Monday's competition also saw the first gold go to North Korea. An Kum Ae had Bundmaa Munkhbaatar on her back in the under 52 kilogram division in 1:01 minutes to claim that honor.

Tsagaanbaatar Haskhbaatar picked up Mongolia's second gold of the games by defeating Iran's two-time world champion Arash Miresmaeili for the gold in the men's under-66 kilograms.

"We Mongolians are off to a good start," he said.

The Japanese weren't celebrating, however.

Athens silver medalist Yuki Yokosawa, one of Japan's gold medal favorites heading into the competition, could only muster a bronze. Hiroyuki Akimoto lost in the quarterfinals to Haskhbaatar.

"All of my coaches and instructors are here today," Yokosawa said after her semifinals loss to An. "I'm very disappointed that I couldn't win the gold medal because they came all the way from Japan to see me."

Japan came to Doha hoping to win most of the 16 Asian Games judo golds on offer, but with only two of its eight Athens Olympic gold medalists here the team is struggling.

After winning two of the four golds on the first day, Japan's only winner on Sunday was Athens gold medalist Masae Ueno, who came through brilliantly in the women's under-70-kilogram division, using a leg sweep to throw South Korea's Bae Eun-hye to the mat in 3 minutes, 26 seconds.

Japan had four more matches on Tuesday.

Tatsuaki Egusa was to compete in the men's under-60-kilogram division, Yohei Takai in the open class, Misato Nakamura in women's under-48-kilos and Mai Tateyama in the women's open.