DAY 4 WRAP UP
Tehran, Iran, May 18, 2022 – The highly-anticipated semifinals are set for the 2022 Asian Men’s Club Volleyball Championship at Azadi Hall on Thursday, with home favourites Tehran Peykan going up against Taraz VC and Shahdab Yazd challenging Suntory Sunbirds to vie for the top honour and the lone berth for the FIVB Men’s Club World Championship later this year.
On Wednesday, the quarterfinals of the topflight competition, seven-time Asian Club winners Peykan, Japan’s Suntory Sunbirds, Taraz VC of Kazakhstan and the Iran’s Premier League champions Shahdab Yazd all pulled out their scintillating wins against their respective rivals and ensured their eligibility in the do-or-die semifinals.
All participating teams gave all-out in their last-ditch efforts of winning their matches contested in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Powerful Dmitriy Muserskiy methodically tore the Qatari defence into shreds with his exceptional attacks as Suntory Sunbirds swept Al-Rayyan in comfortable straight sets 25-20, 25-20, 25-22.
“Congratulations to the Japanese team and we wish success for them, and so far, it has been the best game for us. Life goes on like this; we win once and lose another day. We performed one of our best games today but it was not enough to win,” Zarko Ristoski, Al-Rayyan’s head coach, said after the match.
“In my opinion, all teams have an equal chance and the day you want to play, you have to see if it is your lucky day or not.”
“I do not have much experience in coaching and I was able to learn a series of tactics from the Qatari coach in this game. Tomorrow, we have a difficult game ahead of us against the Iranian team. We have always tried our best and will try to display a good game to get the best result. We played in the Japanese League with the same squad and we played with the same players, but we do not have three of our players in this tournament as they could not make it to Iran,” Kota Yamamura, Suntory Sunbirds’s head coach, said.
Earlier, in-form Taraz VC played Nakhon Ratchasima QminC of Thailand in a thrilling clash which ended 3-1 (25-15, 22-25, 25-17, 25-18) in favour of the Kazakh outfit.
Michail Ustinov scored a match-high 20 points for the Kazakh side, while Wanchai Tabwises topscored with 15 points for Nakhon Ratchasima.
“Thanks to the Thai team, they are a young and promising team. Our players had the best performance, and were good at their individual skills and team spirit. We played a bit nervous as we played the first game of the morning session and we were not used to it. If we can play a good game, we can win tomorrow”, Boris Grebennikov, Taraz’s head coach, said.
“In this game, we hoped to win and reach the semi-finals. We could not have a good defense, but we watched a good game, and the reason for our team’s loss could be the height and physical superiority of the Kazakh players over our team,” Padejsuk Vannachote, Nakhon Ratchasima QminC’s head coach, said.
“Yesterday was our dayoff and today we had a critical game. Thailand was a strong team and had a good defense on the net. I think we will have a good game with Peykan tomorrow and it should be noted that this team has professional players but we trust our players and I think we can win tomorrow’s game,” Onolbek Kanybek Uulu, Taraz VC’s captain, said.
In the other match of the quarterfinals, hosts Peykan still lived up to their expectation following a brilliant 3-0 (25-13, 25-19, 25-14) win against Erbil from Iraq.
Nimir Abdelaziz chipped in with 16 points including 13 attacks for hosts Peykan, while Muntadher Yasir led Erbil with 6 attacks and one ace.
Powerful Amin Esmaeilnezhad displayed his exceptional skill through his exceptional attacks as Shahdab Yazd swept South Gas Sports Club in thrilling three-setter 25-22, 25-19, 25-18 to reach the semifinals.
Amin Esmaeilnezhad was the driving force for Shahdab Yazd, scoring fantastic 15 attack points to complement setter Mahdi Mahdavi’s output, while Aleksei Karpenko led South Gas Sports Club with 13 points.
“I think today was our best game in this tournament. Beating Shahdab was our dream. We studied them very carefully thanks to our Iranian scout man. We lost but I am happy that we could play very good,” Alaa Khalaf, head coach of South Gas, commented.
Nakhon Ratchasima, Erbil, South Gas and Al-Rayyan missed the cut for semifinals and are relegated to classification round for 5th-8th playoffs on Thursday.
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