Chang set up QF against Malaysians
Thailand's Chang pulled off a convincing 25-7 25-16 25-14 victory over Myanmar's Asia World VC to emerge second in their pool after the round-robin matches in the 16th Princess Cup Asian Women's Volleyball Championship on Wednesday.
“I fielded a lot of young players in this match with the aim of giving them competition experience. They put on an impressive show, especially the two setters, Nootsara Tomkom and Pornpun Guedpard. However, we still are making silly mistakes. We need to fix that immediately,” said Thai head coach Kiattipong Radchatagriengkai.
“In our next match, against Malaysia’s San Barbara Polo & Racquet, we have to play more carefully, especially in service and retrieving. We can’t underestimate any team despite the fact that the Malaysian side are ranked lower than us,” he added.
At the end of the preliminaries on Wednesday, in-form Toray Arrows, Japan’s V-Premier League champions, emerged as Pool A winners with 11 points from four wins including a 3-2 victory over the Thai hosts.
Chang bagged 10 points from three wins against that loss. Iran’s Gitipasand were third with six points, with Vietnam’s VTV Binh Dien Long An in fourth position on one win against three losses. The Burmese failed to win a single set in the preliminaries and trailed in fifth spot in the pool.
Giants Tianjin Bridgestone topped Pool B with eight points from three wins. Kazakhstan’s Zhetyssu came second with seven points from two wins after a disappointing 3-2 loss to the Chinese. San Barbara Polo & Racquet of Malaysia finished third, with winless SLBFE of Sri Lanka bringing up the rear after failing to win a set.
Yesterday, Asia World VC powered past SLBFE 25-18 22-25 20-25 28-26 15-11 in a play-off match to decide the last quarter-finalist. That result left SLBFE in 9th.
In today’s quarter-finals, Kazakhstan’s Zhetyssu take on Iran’s Gitipasand, China’s Tianjin face Binh Dien, Chang are pitted against San Barbara and Toray meet Asia World.
