DAY 1 WRAP UP
Tehran, Iran, August 15, 2022 – Defending and successive two-time champions Japan rallied past India in hard-fought five-set thriller to join Korea and Chinese Taipei in notching first wins on Day 1 of the 14th Asian Men’s U18 Volleyball Championship at the Federation Hall on Monday.
The top-tier championship had attracted a total of eight teams across the continent to vie for top honour and four berths up for grabs for the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship.
At the last year’s Boys’ U19 World Championship here, only three teams from Asia joined the fray comprising Iran as hosts, Thailand, fifth from Asian Men’s U18 Championship, and India with the FIVB world ranking. From the very beginning, Iran, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei and Thailand had been qualified for the World Championship, but Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei withdrew due to grave concerns over the global COVID-10 epidemic.
There, Iran claimed bronze medal at the world meet and India finished 10th, with Thailand a distant 13th.
In the Asian Men’s U18 Championship this year, the participating teams comprised hosts Iran, Kuwait, China and Chinese Taipei in Pool A and Japan, Korea, Thailand and India in Pool B.
The curtain-raiser between Japan and India saw the former leave the court delighted with an hard-fought victory against the latter in Pool B. On Tuesday, Japan will play Korea in their second match, while Thailand will challenge India.
Hiroshi Honda, head coach of Japan, said, “India is one of the good teams in this tournament and played very strongly. Overall, it was a good first match”.
Chinese Taipei, fourth place in the previous edition in Tabriz in 2018, enjoyed effortless victory in the first two sets 25-11, 25-17, went down in the third set 20-25 and got the leading way back on track in the fourth set, which they won comfortably 25-16.
The Taiwanese boys are due to next take on China on Wednesday after a rest day on Tuesday.
Chen Chun-Chang, head coach of Chinese Taipei, said, “We had problems on receiving the ball, which caused disharmony in the team. We had no knowledge of the Kuwait team, but luckily, we won this match. The performance of the players will improve over time and I hope, we will win the competition in the next matches”.
In the second match of Pool B, determined Korea, which claimed silver medal two times on the trot in 2017 and 2018, produced straight-set 27-25, 25-27, 25-20 victory against Thailand to claim their first win. Korea will next take on the formidable Japan, while Thailand go up against India.
Yun Seojin top-scored with 11 points including 9 attacks, while Lee Woojin, with a team-leading 4 blocks, and Lee Sumin kept him good company to add 10 and 9 points respectively. Samphan Leklai bagged 12 points for the losing Thailand.
MATCH RESULTS AND TEAM RANKING
MATCH SCHEDULE
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