China win a five-game thriller against Thailand

The clash of the two unbeaten teams, India and South Korea, to decide the Pool A winners, was fierce from the very beginning of the first game. Powerful hitter Prabagaran tore the Korean defence apart with thundering cross-court spikes to lead India to a 25-22 win.

 However, Korea, preparing for the Asian Games as hosts, stormed back to win the remaining three games 25-22 25-21 25-22 and the match.

 “It was a good match. We made a good start to win the first game and played well in the remaining three. The only problem was in the second game where we could not advance after squaring it 21-all. I must admit that Korea were very strong. However, I’m also happy with my team as they did their best but just could not win. We next take on Thailand in the play-off. Thailand are a strong team. We’ll try our best to put on a good show in that match,” India’s head coach GE Sridharan said.

Meanwhile, world No 37 Thailand, who claimed the fourth place at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games but failed to qualify for the last two AVC Cups, got off to a confident start to stun title-holders China in the first game 25-19.

The Chinese counter-attacked well to take the second game 25-22. In the next two games, both teams put on their best foot forward and traded mighty shots. Thailand won the third game 25-18 but China came roaring back to win the fourth 25-22.

In the thrilling tie-breaker, China continued with their attacks while Thailand relied on solid defence. After a gutsy display by both teams, China edged forward with a final assault to win the decider 15-13 and the gruelling five-game encounter.

 “After taking the second game, China played more confidently, while we suffered with our poor reception. We could not get past their huge blocks and failed to block their high spikes and that’s why we lost,” Thailand’s head coach Monchai Supajirakul said.

Elsewhere, Kazakhstan delighted their fans with their first victory of the tournament, overpowering Guangzhou Asian Games champs Japan in straight games 25-19, 25-12 and 27-25, while Australia gave indomitable Iran a scare before going down in four dramatic games 13-25, 30-28, 23-25 and 20-25.

 At the completion of the group round-robin preliminaries, South Korea topped Pool A with nine points from three wins. India came second with six points from two wins against one loss. Kazakhstan finished third with three points from one win against two losses, while winless Japan finished fourth position.

 Iran made a clean sweep of Pool B with eight points. China and Thailand had identical five points, but the former had the better-game ratio to finish second. Thailand were third with winless Australia in fourth position.

Yesterday was a rest day. The knockout quarter-finals will be held today, with the winning teams advancing to the semi-finals. The four losers will be relegated to the 5th-8th classification round.