FIVB Championship: Russia stays undeafeated, Japan beats Korea
Russia and Japan both scored victories in women's volleyball action on Tuesday 9 November in Japan.
The second round of the Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Women's Volleyball World Championship started up again on Tuesday after taking Monday off. Four teams will advance from two pools
to play for the championships, while another eight will compete for positions 5-12. The bottom two teams from each pool will be eliminated.
Serbia vs Russia Pool E
Russia beat Serbia 3-0 (19-25 8-25 12-25) to remain undefeated at 6-0. Serbia dropped to 3-3. Russia has clinched a spot in the championship semi-finals, and can clinch first in the Pool with a win over
Japan on Wednesday. Serbia will play Korea with the winner earning a spot in the 5-8 position semi-finals.
Ekaterina Gamova led Russia in scoring with 18 points while Serbia’s captain, Jelena Nikolic, led her team with nine points.
Serbia stayed close to Russia early in the first set, at one point trailing 12-11, but Russia picked up the pace from there allowing only 20 points against in the second and third sets combined.
“It was a very easy game for the Russian team,” said Brizizka Molnar of Serbia. “We only played a bit in the first set, but after that we stopped. In the last few years, we've played Russia many times
and had some good games, but today it was very bad.”
Japan vs Korea Pool E
Japan improved to 5-1 and clinched a top two finish in Pool E with a 3-0 (25-22 25-17 25-19) victory over Korea. Korea fell to 3-3, and will play Serbia in their final second round game, the winner of
that match will clinch a third or fourth place finish in the Pool. Japan will play Russia on Wednesday, but will probably not take first place even with a win over the defending champions because Russia holds a large lead over Japan in the points differential
ratio tiebreaker.
The host team, Japan, played strong against the Koreans in front of 6900 cheering fans. Yukiko Ebata led Japan in scoring with 24 points, but Saori Kimura was right behind her with 17. Yeon-Koung Kim led
Korea with 20 points.
Korea led 21-20 in the first set, but Japan picked up the pace to take the set 25-22. From there Japan took early leads in the second and third set, and didn’t allow Korea to get back in the match.
“We didn't think Japan was so strong, but we weren't at our best,” said Kim. “We really wanted to win, but it didn't work out. We thought we could get more points off Japan and have a chance of winning
the match, but we made errors on certain points and that's why we lost.”
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