DAY 5 WRAP UP
Tehran, Iran, August 20, 2022 – The highly anticipated semifinals are set for the 14th Asian Men’s U18 Volleyball Championship at the Federation Hall on Sunday, with hosts Iran going up against aspiring India and fired-up Korea challenging defending two-time champions Japan in a mighty Pool B rematch.
The powerful quartet advanced to the Sunday’s cross semifinals, hoping to prove their talents to vie for top honour. However, win or lose, the top four teams – Iran, Japan, Korea and India – are assured of winning their places in the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship.
Contesting the quarterfinals on Saturday, all participating eight teams gave it all out in their last-ditch efforts of clinching the semifinal berths and their spots at the next year’s U19 World Championship. With their eyes on the Top Four spots, all eight teams played with determination for must-win matches. The Saturday’s loss would relegate four losing teams to classification round for 5th-8th places.
The 1999 champions Korea punctured the Chinese defence into shreds with their devastating attacks to beat the opponents in epic tiebreaker 25-21, 23-25, 25-22, 22-25, 15-13, while terrific Kush Singh’s 22 points including 17 attacks in scintillating 3-1 (25-19, 25-14, 25-27, 25-23) victory over Chinese Taipei helped the Indians secure semifinal berth in this top-tier championship.
In the other quarterfinal encounter, Kuwait could not cope with the Japan’ incredible power-and-speed tactics and went down in straight sets 21-25, 18-25, 12-25 to the well-established Japanese.
Before a partisan crowd of about 500 home fans, Iran put up a strong fight against Thailand, which could not hold their nerves after stunning first-set win. The Thais succumbed to 1-3 (26-24, 13-25, 19-25, 15-25) loss to the much stronger rivals, becoming only the lone team from Pool B unable to make the cut for the semifinals.
With the top two teams through to the semifinals, the four losing teams will contest the classification round for 5th-8th places. On Sunday, China take on Kuwait and Thailand challenge Chinese Taipei. The two winners will fight it out for the 5th place on Monday, with the two losing teams facing off for the 7th position.
In the Sunday’s semifinals, the clash between unbeaten Iran and India becomes one of the most eye-catching matches, while reigning champions Japan set up a mighty clash with Korea, the team they had beaten 3-2 in the pool plays.
At the previous edition in 2018 in Iran, Japan reigned supreme, while Korea, Iran and Chinese Taipei finished second, third and fourth places respectively. The 2020 episode was also set to take place at the similar competition site in Iran, but was cancelled due to grave concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
MATCH RESULTS
SUNDAY’S MATCH SCHEDULE
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