Japan holds off Chinese Taipei for 3-0 victory – Volleyball news
Japan completed the winning streak of two matches by defeating Chinese Taipei on Sunday. Tokyo Metropolitan Gym hosted the match, while home team claimed the winning status by posting 3-0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-14) on board.
It was more of a one-sided affair as Japanese musketeers totally dominated the visiting Chinese Taipei squad. The hosts profited from home advantage and added second win to their tally. Japan played it first match against Peru and overpowered the guest team
in straight sets. One again, the local team repeated the same act and edged out CT in the similar fashion.
Clad in No. 12 jersey Saori Kimura of Japan drew whole lot of attention of the spectators. She made a total of 32 attack attempts and produced 17 winning spikes. Moreover, she proved the power of her forearms and claimed three points on serve aces. On the
whole, she totalled 21 points and settled for the position of top-scorer in the match.
Chinese Taipei players displayed a poor performance and none of them could cross the single-figure score. Chen Wang Ting and Teng Yen Min ended up with eight points each for Chinese Taipei.
In the first set, scoring was very tight up till the first technical timeout. Japan led the scores with narrow gap but Chinese Taipei came on top at the first technical timeout. Thereafter, Chinese Taipei committed too many reception mistakes and suffered
frequent set-backs. Japan went up at the second technical timeout and widened the gap of points. Chinese Taipei ended with 16 points and suffered the loss of opening frame.
Chinese Taipei started off well in the next set and picked up early lead. However, Japan managed to break the tempo of CT players and attained better status at the first mandatory stop (8-7). Ebata's service aces helped Japan to build pressure on the visiting
team. Eventually, the second set concluded at 25-13 and Japan improved to 2-0.
Japan kept the momentum going and quickly covered the length of third set. They secured the final set by scoring 25-14 and announced match victory.
“Of course we are relieved to win 3-0 in straight sets. We still need improvement in certain areas. We would like to work on those areas before our next match. This was Kanako Hirai's first game with the national team and I wanted her to get used to the
atmosphere. Risa Shinnabe will be an asset to the team during the rest of this tournament,” said Japan’s Masayoshi Manabe after the match.
The Coach of Chinese Taipei Norimasa Sakakuchi blamed on bad reception as CT dropped too many shots and suffered the damage. He concluded, “We tried to hit the ball as hard as we could, but this resulted in several mistakes for us.”
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