Spain defeats India to claim 10th position in FIVB Men's Junior World Championship
The Spanish and the Indians contested each other on August 10th at the Maracanazinho Gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the 7th place finish in the FIVB Men's Junior World Championship. The resulting competition was thrilling to
watch and took five sets to reach its close with the Spanish celebrating their win over the Indians.
The final set scores that got Spain their 7th position in the tournament were as follows: 21-25, 17-25, 25-21, 25-12 and 19-17.
After having lost the first set of the match, the performance of the Spanish team went further downhill in the second. However, a two set loss sent a much needed wake up call to Spain and they rebounded in the third set by defeating the Indians. Once they
got into their stride, the Spain was able to win the fourth set of the game by a comfortable margin. The fifth set of the game saw both teams perform at the best that stretched the frame but the Spanish proved to be the better side.
Francisco Hervas, the Spanish coach, made the following comments at the press conference after the match had finished: “I could not be more proud of my players. We played a hard match against Brazil last night and there was no much time to recover before
this and, even so, we could win a match that was almost lost. It was an exciting match and I am happy we won it.”
Whereas the Indian coach, M.H. Kumara expressed himself by giving the following statements: “We lacked the fighting spirit that Spain showed to reverse the match. We played well in the first two sets but from the moment they changed to float serving, we
had many trouble in receiving.”
Spain had the lead early on in the first set at 8-6 but the Indians were able to tie the score at 12-12 after which they got into a leading position at 14-13. The Indians took the advantage all the way to 23-20 which ended on Indian terms at 25-21.
Capitalising on the confidence built by winning the opening set, the Indians were able to start the second set of the game in a strong manner and lead at 8-6. The Asians were able to extend their advantage to 12-7. Spain kept trailing all the way as the
Indians marched on towards another set win at 25-17.
Despite the fact that the Indians had the lead in the third set of the game at 8-5, Spain was able to reverse the course of events at the end by getting themselves the advantage at 23-21 that pushed them to a 25-21 victory.
The fourth set was completely dominated by the Spanish and it did not take them long to end at 25-12. The fifth set however was tough, with the score tied at 8-8 but the Spanish got the lead at 10-8 and held it to 19-17.
Francisco Ruiz was able to lead the Spanish by scoring a total of 21 points while on the Indian side, T.D. Ravikumar stayed the most effective by posting 21 points.
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