Tehran, Iran, May 15, 2022 – South Gas found Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima QminC a tough nut to crack to go down 1-3 in the preliminary Pool A clash on Sunday for two losses on the trot at the 2022 Asian Men’s Club Volleyball Championship at the Azadi Hall here.
After a straight-set letdown to hosts Peykan in the previous match on Saturday, South Gas Sports Club of Iraq came into the court with the winning attitude, only to leave the competition venue with their heads low in disappointment with two consecutive losses, this time at the hands of Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima QminC, loaded with strong players including captain Wanchai Tabwises and Uzbek’s Islomjon Sobirov.
Nakhon Ratchasima, hoping to make amends for their first loss on Saturday, played well in the first set against South Gas but still found the impeccable rivals too hot to handle as they narrowly went down in the hard-fought first set 22-25.
The Thai squad were not willing to give up as they engineered an aggressive fightback and thanks to the tightened defence and back-to-back attacks in crucial moments, they annulled the Iraqis fightback for the impressive 25-17, 25-22 win in the second and third sets.
Nakhon Ratchasima managed to give South Gas trouble in the fourth set and the Iraqi side severally tried to make it a tie and revived the hope of winning the set but Nakhon Ratchasima regrouped and held firm to seal the set 25-22 and match.
Wanchai Tabwises chipped in with 18 points for Nakhon Ratchasima, while Hussein Nameer Shamil Kamoona led South Gas with 11 points.
Nakhon Ratchasima on Monday will challenge former 7-time champions Tehran Peykan in their last preliminary match, while South Gas are due to battle it out against Japan’s Suntory Sunbirds.
“I am so satisfied to get our first win against strong South Gas. We have faced each other in the previous edition on our home soil and beat them 3-1 and we were lucky to repeat the same result. For tomorrow’s match against Peykan, we will do our best no matter what the result will be. I am happy that my players are finding the chance to play against such big stars and foreign players of Peykan. The experience from these matches will be truly effective for us in the future,” Vannachote Padejsuk, head coach of Nakhon Ratchasima, was quoted as saying after the match.
Alaa Khalaf, head coach of South Gas, believed, “We lost to our mistakes. These high numbers of mistakes are impossible in volleyball. I really do not know what happened. I could not change the whole plan for this match because it would surely be difficult to rearrange them. We will do our best in the next match that will also be tough, that is against Suntory Sunbirds.”
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