Day 6 Wrap-Up
Vinh Phuc, Vietnam, April 30, 2023 – Hisamitsu Springs mercilessly crushed Hip Hing VC and Paykan tasted tournament’s first win in their classification round for 5th-9th places in the 2023 Asian Women’s Club Volleyball Championship at the Vinh Phuc Gymnasium here.
Hisamitsu Springs, the 2002 and 2014 champions, Paykan, winners at the Iran Women’s Premier League current 2022/23 season, are testing their mettle in Pool E, which combined teams finishing 3rd-4th places from Pool A and 3rd-4th-5th places from Pool B to compete in classification round for 5th-9th places of the championship. Joining the Pool E campaign are Hip Hing from Hong Kong China, Khuvsgul Erchim, the first team ever from Mongolia, and the 2021 champions Altay from Kazakhstan.
In Pool E, all five teams are set to compete in a pool round-robin format again, while teams from the same Pool A and Pool B which have already met in their preliminaries need not play again, but the results from the preliminaries earlier will be counted for 5th-9th rankings of each participating team in Pool E.
Hisamitsu Springs had earlier beaten Iran’s Paykan, the fourth place in Pool A, 3-1 in the pool round-robin preliminaries, but he Japanese outfits had also succumbed to two straight losses in Pool A comprising 2-3 to King Whale Taipei and 1-3 to Vietnam’s Sport Center 1, resulting in their failure in making the cut for the semifinals.
Hisamitsu, third place in Pool A, performed well up to their level in their Sunday’s match against Hip Hing which turned out to be an easy encounter. Hisamitsu fielded many substitutions including Akari Shirasawa, setter Erika Sakae and Ayane Kitamado, but remained strong offensively with the likes of hard-attacking Megumi Fukazawa to breeze past Hip Hing 25-9, 25-9, 25-15.
Paykan also followed Hisamitsu’s successful footsteps to brush off Khuvsgul Erchim in comfortable, but thrilling match 25-17, 25-21, 25-16 for their first win in the championship.
At the Pool E standings, Altay and Hisamitsu Springs had 6 points apiece from similar two straight wins, with the former beating Hip Hing and Khuvsgul Erchim and the latter downing Paykan and Hip Hing. However, with better points ratio, Altay stayed atop Pool E and Hisamitsu Springs came in second place in the pool.
Paykan finished third in Pool E with 3 points from one win against Khuvsgul Erchim on Sunday, while the Mongolians and Hip Hing VC came in respective fourth and fifth positions.
The Pool E matches continue on Monday and Tuesday. The next two matches in Pool E on Monday sees Hisamitsu Springs face Khuvsgul Erchim at 10.30am local time, followed by the match between Paykan and Altay at 1.30pm. Respective 5th-9th rankings can be officially confirmed on Tuesday, the final day of the continent’s topflight club championship.
Meanwhile, the eagerly-anticipated semifinals are set to turn into action-packed and intense contest in Pool D on Monday.
Diamond Food, the former consecutive two-time Thailand League champions and bronze medallists at the last year’s edition in Semey, Kazakhstan, will clash with King Whale Taipei, winners at the Taiwan Enterprise League in current 2022/23 season, in the first semifinal clash at 4.30pm local time on Monday.
The other semifinal encounter sees Sport Center 1, the only team unbeaten in the 2023 Asian Women’s Club Volleyball Championship which fielded all Vietnam national players in their final preparation for the next week’s 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia, in action against China’s Liaoning Donghua VC, the team finishing 7th at the Chinese V. League in current 2022/23 season.
Among the semifinalists, only Diamond Food made the podium just once as the Thai outfits earned a well-deserved third place after powering past Iran’s Barij Essence 3-1 in the bronze-medal match last year in Semey, Kazakstan.
Vietnam’s Sport Center 1 and King Whale Taipei also have their sights firmly set on winning their unprecedented title this time, while Liaoning Donghua have never participated in the Asian Women’s Club Championship, but hope high to make their mark this time to hand China the 9th title the country had already won in the history of this championship.
Shanghai became the first team from China to capture the first two titles for the nation in the Asian Women’s Club Championship in 2000 on home soil and 2001 in Vietnam. Tianjin Bridgestone extended the China’s domination in this championship to four when they won it in 2005 in Vietnam and successfully defended the crown the following year in Philippines.
Tianjin Bridgestone reclaimed their title in 2008 in Vietnam and 2012 in Thailand. Guangdong Evergrande captured the China’s 7th title in 2013 in Vietnam and Tianjin Bohai Bank handed China the 8th title in 2019 on home soil.
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