Japan's Toray Arrows ease into Princess Cup final
Play
The Japan's V-League champions Toray Arrows stormed into the final of the 16th Princess Cup Asian Women's Club Volleyball Championship after toppling Zhetyssu of Kazakhstan in straight sets yesterday.
Contesting the semi-finals at the MCC Hall inside The Mall Nakhon Ratchasima, Toray showed amazing speed and power at the net to brush off the Kazakh side 25-17 25-17 25-20.
After conceding the first two sets 25-17 25-17, Zhetyssu, eight of them national Kazakh national players whose height average is 182cm, tried hard to blunt the Japanese team’s exceptional tactics in the third set. However, the Japanese were just too strong for the Kazakhs. Toray captured the hard-fought set 25-20 and a final berth.
In today’s final, Toray will take on the winners of the match between Thailand’s Chang and China’s Tianjin Bridgestone, due to take place later yesterday.
Chang on Friday fielded their substitutes to outclass San Barbara Polo & Racquet of Malaysia 25-14 25-9 25-12.
“I’m happy that my team beat the Malaysian side. I sent all substitutes to give them an opportunity to gain competition experience and they played according to plan. At the same time, the seniors had a chance to rest before playing much tougher matches in the final two days,” Thai head coach Kiattipong Radchatagriengkai said.
“We have played this Chinese team several times. They are a strong team not to taken lightly. We have to use all techniques and tactics to stay in the match. We must play without making too many mistakes. I’m upbeat about the chances. I think my players will overcome all obstacles in the match against Tianjin to advance to the final.”
Earlier yesterday, the 5th-8th classification round for the lower-ranked teams saw Vietnam’s VTV Binh Dien Long An seal a comfortable 25-6 25-14 25-14 win over Malaysia’s San Barbara Polo & Racquet and Iran’s Gitipasand pull off a convincing 25-14 25-19 25-18 victory over Burma’s Asia World.
Today, San Barbara take on Asia World in the 7th-8th play-off, with Gitipasand and Binh Dien battling it out for the fifth position. Zhetyssu will face losers in the Chang-Tianjin encounter.
