Russia beats Japan 3-1; Win streak hits 4 games - Volleyball News
Women’s teams from Russia and Japan fought for supremacy at the Earls Court on Friday as the fourth match of the 2012 London Olympics Volleyball Tournament brought the two sides together.
The scoring remained tight throughout the match and an audience of 10,000 witnessed the back ‘n’ forth action of volleyball. Finally, Russia hit the mark and marched away with 3-1 (27-25, 25-17, 20-25, 25-19) victory. Japanese ladies put up a nice show,
but failed to grab success.
Russia’s Ekaterina Gamova and Nataliya Goncharova did an amazing job and led their team to success. They contributed 29 and 26 points respectively. Team Japan was supported by Saori Sakoda and Saori Kimura, who finished with 23 points apiece.
Japanese team had a relatively slow start in the match. Russia, on the other hand, earned early points and picked up lead. Gradually, Japan worked its position up and pushed the rivals behind. Japan went up at 19-14 before Russia levelled the score at 23-all.
Thereafter, the two teams staged a volleyball scrimmage and tried to claim the set points, in the first place. Russia got lucky and closed opening stanza with two points.
Second set also came successful for Russia, but the Japanese squad managed to claim third frame of the match. That was the only set won by Japan. Russia bounced back in fourth set and announced victory after sending 25-19 on board.
Top-gun of Japan, Saori Sakoda, shared her thoughts about the match. She stated: “We really have to concentrate to get the points. We made a few errors and I really need to know the court better to make the points count. We need to improve coordination within
the team, watch the ball and where it comes from."
Yoshie Takeshita, Player of Japan commented: “Russia's team showed very good strength to win the final points. When we made errors, they took the opportunity to score. At the beginning of the first two sets we were behind Russia. We tried to chase them but
we lost. However, in the third set we led at the beginning and kept the advantage.”
Russian player Nataliya Goncharova regarded it as the most difficult game of the tournament so far. She praised the way Japanese team played and also congratulated her own team for the hard-earned victory.
Russia is scheduled to play the last match of the preliminary round against Italy on Sunday, while Japan will have the final shot of the prelims against hosts GB. Both teams have already qualified for the quarterfinals and probably would not have any pressure
on them in the upcoming fixtures.
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