Japan sweeps Korea in Pool L of the FIVB World Grand Prix – Volleyball update
A Pool L fixture of the FIVB World Grand Prix took place on August 20th in Tokyo, Japan, between Japan and Korea. The venue of the match was the Ariake Colosseum as the Japanese and Korean teams clashed for dominance and the home squad made a
clean sweep over Korea in the preliminary round of the tournament.
The first set of the match saw the Koreans struggle with playing their rivals on their home ground that led to a bad performance by Korea which gave Japan the win with a comfortable margin. However, the second set of the game was a tough fight between the
two rivals. Eventually, Japan was able to bag the second set that took them to start the third set with confidence. However, Korea put up a good fight in the final set but the effort came in too late as the Japanese earned a win at the following final set
scores: 25-19, 25-22 and 29-27.
The coach of the Japanese team, Masayoshi Manabe, gave the following statements at the press conference after the match, “Because we lost last night, we knew we have to win the last two games to get to the Final Round. The players were able to concentrate
tonight and that's the reason why we were able to win.”
The Korean coach, Kim Hyung-Sil, shared his views and said, “Overall it wasn't a good game. I felt that the game against Japan was more psychological warfare. I thought we had prepared enough, especially on defence, but our strategy failed and we couldn't
play our volleyball.”
The Japanese were able to take the advantage early on at 11-3 with the Koreans struggling to get into form. The slow start for the Koreans enabled the Japanese to extend their advantage to 15-5. However, Korea stepped up their performance and started to
close in the gap at 24-19 but the Japanese prevailed in bagging a win at 25-19.
The Koreans were leading at 6-2 in the second set, an advantage they were able to extend to 9-3 but the Japanese snatched the lead away from their opponents at 12-10. After that, the lead stayed with the Japanese and they won the set at 25-22.
The Koreans were leading in the third set at 9-8 but the Japanese soon got ahead at 13-10. However, the scores reached a tie at 16-16 after which the Koreans got the lead again at 23-19. The game went back and forth after that but Japan eventually secured
the third set at 29-27.
Even though Korea lost the match, the player Kim Yeon-Koung was able to tally the highest number of points in both teams by scoring 20. On the other hand, the Japanese top scorer was Saori Kimura with 15 points.
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