Kazakhstan rallies to shock Qatar by 3-2 in semi-final: Volleyball News
Men’s National Volleyball Team of Kazakhstan recorded a 3-2 win over Qatar in the semi-final match for the 9th position at 2011 Asian Men’s Volleyball Championship. The five set thriller was staged on Tuesday, September 27, where the Kazak squad
downed the Qatari side by 20-25, 25-18, 25-15, 23-25, and 15-7 as the Azadi Sports hall in Tehran, Iran hosted the match. Kazakhstan reserved a berth in the final match for 9th position by defeating Qatar.
Qatar took the opening set of the match with a 5-point margin. Mohamed Jumah helped Qatar with a strong opening as he served powerfully and scored points via straight aces. Kazakhstan relied on Dmitry Gorbatkov, who gave a good competition to the qatari
squad. He put away nice cross-court shots and delivered tricky bumps. Kazakhstan pulled away 2-point lead near the second technical timeout before Mohamed Jumah came up with heavy strike of volleys and led Qatar to first set win, 25-20.
The second set was much tighter than the first until Kazakhstan went up with three points in a row. Vitaliy Erdshtien did an amazing job at throwing solid spikes and stretched the gap of points. John Chigbo of Qatar put his hands up in the air at almost
every attack attempt from Kazak hitters but it did not put an end to Kazakhstan’s hard-hitting. They attained a great rhythm and pushed Qatar behind the line. Second set swiftly inched its way to the end and concluded with the tie of 1-1 as Kazakhstan captured
the set.
Keeping the same momentum, Kazakhstan made further progress in the third set. Success in the previous set fully restored their confidence and they played to their full potential. Qatar, which opened the game on a very good note, seemed to be pushed into
the blue corner. They failed to sustain the pressure and committed too many mistakes, which totally benefitted Kazakhstan. Moreover, Dmitry and Vitaliy continued with their commanding shots and led Kazakhstan to another set-win in third frame. Qatar could
only claim 15 points in the set and acknowledged Kazakhstan’s better position.
However, the game took a different turn in the fourth set. Most of the spectators were under assumption that match would end in four sets as Kazakhstan got better and better after first set. Nevertheless, there was some charge left in the Qatari players.
They followed a different strategy of attack and defence in fourth set, which helped them force Kazakhstan to play fifth set. Qatar won fourth set with slight margin of two points, 25-23, but could not carry the momentum in final set. Once again they caught
up in a flurry of mistakes. They scored only seven points, while Kazakhstan hit the mark with final set victory (15-7) and declared semi-final success.
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