Russia defeats Japan in a Pool A match of World League by 3-2 – Volleyball news
A Pool A match of the FIVB Volleyball World League took place in Belgrade, Serbia on Thursday, June 28, 2012. The match was held between Russia and Japan at the SPC Vojvodina sports hall. The contest went on for five sets that took a total of two hours to
reach its close at the end of which Russia emerged as the victors.
The 3-2 win of the Russians was achieved through the following final set scores: 20-25, 24-26, 25-19, 25-17 and 15-11.
The coach of the Russian squad, Vladimir Alekno, expressed his satisfaction at the win in the following words, “It is an important victory for us. Right now we are not 100% ready, but we will be. No matter if you play against Japan or Brazil you have to
do your best, and my team is progressing.”
On the other hand, the Japanese coach, Tatsuya Ueta, shared his views on the outcome of the match by giving the following comments, “It was a good match for us. Today Muserskiy and Mikhaylov were great on serve and in the attack, but we defended well, so
I am very satisfied with my team...I hope that tomorrow we can repeat good performance against strong Serbian side.”
The player who was able to tally the highest number of points in the match was Shimizu Kunihiro of Japan as he kept the pressure on his opponents by putting up 19 points while the top scorer on the Russian side was Dmitriy Muserskiy with 17 points.
The opening set of the match saw both the teams play equally well and got to a tie at 4-4. Japan managed to take the lead into the first technical time out but Russia pulled ahead. Japan did not give up the chase and Russia fell to making errors that gave
away the first set to Japan at 25-20.
The Japanese were able to take the lead in the second set at 9-5 and it was not until 23-23 that Russia managed to level the scores. By that time, Japan was in no mood to give up their dominance and they went ahead to secure the second set at 26-24.
Russia stepped up their game to gain a 3-1 lead in the third set after which the Japanese coach called for a time out but Russia did not let the breaks affect its momentum and prevailed in keeping the advantage to finally grab the third set at 25-19.
The start of the third set saw both the teams come out strong but eventually Russia was able to move away with the lead and make a speedy win at 25-17. The final set of the match saw the Russians with a lead of 8-5. Japan could not maintain the energy to
play competitively that facilitated Russia to secure the fifth set at 15-11.
Tags: