Japan hands a straight set defeat to Thailand – Volleyball news
Japanese women’s national volleyball team delighted the home fans by giving out a wonderful performance against Thailand in third match of the 2012 FIVB Women’s World Olympic Qualification Tournament on Tuesday, May 22.
The hosts posted 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 25-21) win over Thailand and extended their winning streak to 3-0. Success in third match moved Japan to the top slot on the ranking chart. Around 8,000 spectators witnessed the cracking volleyball action at the Tokyo
Metropolitan Gym. With a consistent performance Japan has clearly shown the ambition to make its way to the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Speaking of the match, Wing-spiker Yukiko Ebata played an instrumental role in Japan’s victory. She performed amazingly well and helped the team with match-high 21 points. Saori Kimura emerged second best scorer of the match with 15 points.
For Thailand, Malika Kanthong registered the highest 13 points whereas Onuma Sittirak contributed 8 points.
Overall, Japan influenced the visiting team with solid defence. Japan added 17 blocks, while Thailand claimed only 4.
Equipped with good support of local fans, home team opened the match with powerful serves. The ball perfectly landed on Thailand’s half and Japan improved on the scoreboard. With an early lead, Japan successfully dragged Thailand under pressure. Thai players
seemed scattered and dropped too many shots, which moved them to 2-8 at the first technical timeout. Japan continued the passionate play and took the score to 16-10 at the next technical break. Thailand failed to change the mood of game afterwards and slipped
first set, 17-25.
Strong offence of Japan did not allow Thailand to come up in second set either. They jumped to 5-2 lead and improved to 8-6 at the FTT. Ebata and Tomkom played skilfully and hit point-scoring spikes and aces. Second set came to end at 25-18 and Japan improved
to 2-0.
Thailand gave a fairly good competition to Japan in the latter half of third set but could not avoid the chances of defeat. Japan posted 25-21 in third set and claimed the match.
The Head Coach of Thailand Kiattipong Radchatagriengkai explained the reason for their defeat after the match. He stated, “Japan played very good. It was a hard game for us. We prepared hard. We just did not do well on offense and defence. The key point
was our counterattack. We could not block well on some rally points. We will try to do our best in the next game.”
On the other hand, wining Coach Masayoshi Manabe commented, “I thought today's game would be tough. Our serves and blocking went well, so it was good. I was surprised by how well we blocked tonight. We put Kanako Hirai in earlier than we planned because
Nana Iwasaka did not do as well as we expected.”
Tags: