Japan sweeps Australia on fifth day of FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament
The fifth day of the FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament played on June 7 saw one match take place between the home team of Japan and the Australians.
The tournament was being staged in the capital of Japan while the venue where the matches were being held was the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
Taking full advantage of the home court, the Japanese team was able to make a clean sweep over their opponents. Despite losing three straight frame, the Australians put up a good fight in the first two sets but their motivation visibly slackened in the third
frame as the Japanese were able to smoother them and register a win at the following final set scores: 25-22, 25-23 and 25-12.
The Japanese coach Tatsuya Ueta, expressed his happiness on the win in the following way, “I want to thank the players. They were all focused tonight. We will do our best in our last two games. We will have to be psyched up and united. We thought Australia's
serves were softer than China's, so we tried to take advantage of this.”
On the other hand, the Australian coach Jon Uriarte, shared his views on the outcome of the contest by giving the following statements at the press conference held after the match, “Our reception attack and transition attack were not working properly tonight.
Our serves gave us opportunities but we could not take advantage of them. The attack has to be better to win at this level.”
Two players from the home team, Tatsuya Fukuzawa and Kota Yamamura, were able to score the highest points in the entire match by tallying 15 while the most active Australian player was Igor Yudin with 14 points.
The Japanese were able to speed ahead to a first set lead at 5-3. Once they had the lead, they did not let it go in the entire length of the match despite the Australians keeping the score close in the first two sets.
The recent match has given both the teams a tournament record of 3-2. The upcoming match for the Japanese is with the Puerto Ricans while the Australians will be heading towards the Koreans.
Tags: