Japan's Wakana Koga and Ryuju Nagayama both came second at the judo World Masters in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Koga, the runner-up at last year's world championships, went down to an early waza-ari from Shirine Boukli of France in the women's 48-kilogram division final after reaching the title decider by winning all her previous rounds by ippon.
Nagayama also amassed ippon to reach the men's 60-kg final but fell at the last hurdle, falling to a waza-ari from Lee Ha Rim of South Korea in extra time.
Both judoka face a mountain to climb in their bid to make the world championships next May in Doha, with domestic rivals ahead of them in the race to secure berths in their respective categories.
Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Tsukasa Yoshida finished third in the women's 57 kg as she bounced back from a quarterfinal defeat to Canada's Christa Deguchi to medal in the repechage.
Deguchi, who grew up in Nagano Prefecture in Japan before switching nationalities, defeated Chelsie Giles of Britain in the final for the title.
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