Thais go down fighting against towering Kazakh women

World No 16 Thailand maintained their regular strong line-up led by the hard-hitting Onuma Sittirak, Pleumjit Thinkaow and Wilavan Apinyapong, while Kazakhstan fielded a well-established roster powered by the towering Tatyana Mudritskaya.

Kazakhstan, who hadn’t beaten Thailand since the 2006 Asian Games, yesterday got off to a great start to take a 15-12 lead in the opening set, thanks to exceptional attacks from the 195cm Mudritskaya and Sana Jarlagassova.

The formidable visitors continued their onslaughts with spectacular spikes from Mudritskaya and scintillating blocks from Korinna Ishimtseva and Olga Nassedkina to stretch the lead to 21-16.

The cheering home supporters came to life when their players showed guts and spirit to catch up with Kazakhstan 23-23 and moved ahead 24-23, needing only one more point to win the set. However, they let the win slip through their fingers. Kazakhstan hit back strongly to win two straight points for the first-set 25-23.

Having lost the opening set, Thailand opened up aggressively in the second set to lead 13-8. However, Thai nerves began to fray shortly after that, allowing the visitors attacking opportunities. Kazakhstan clawed their way back to tie the score 13-13 and stormed on to win the hard-fought set 26-24.

After going down two sets, Thailand played with nothing to lose in the third set. They captured the pole position in the third set to lead 5-1 and stretched it to 16-10, courtesy of their excellent teamwork. From then on, the home team never looked back to take the set 25-17.

Kazakhstan led initially in the fourth set 13-8 and despite putting up a gallant fight, the Thais still failed to make their mark, going down 20-25 to lose the match 1-3.

Tatyana Mudritskaya scored a match-high 26 points for Kazakhstan, while Onuma Sittirak topscored with 25 points for Thailand.

“We were not successful in attacking for points. Kazakhstan had height advantage and they had a big change in their team rosters. They fielded several strong players we have never seen, especially their No 1 [Tatyana Mudriskaya]. We could not produce good blocks against such high attacks. Our reception also did not live up to my expectation,” Thai head coach Kiattipong Radchatagriengkai commented after the match.

Kazakhstan’s head coach Gutor Oleksandr said: “It’s very hard for us to play Thailand. However, I think we played well today against them. This Kazakhstan team have been playing together for a long time. Tatyana Mudriskaya has played with the team for 10 years, but she was absent from the team for some time due to her pregnancy. She did a good job today. However, despite the win, I don’t want to talk about our future matches. I hope my team perform well one match at a time.”

Thailand next play Australia and Kazakhstan take on Mongolia.

Earlier, tournament debutantes Mongolia fought hard against Australia, but went down to their taller rivals in straight sets 20-25 23-25 18-25, while at the MCC Hall inside The Mall Nakhon Ratchasima, Independent Team from India recorded victory, thrashing the Philippines in straight sets 25-22 26-24 25-12. A record 16 teams are competing in the 17th Asian Senior Women’s Volleyball Championship, vying for berths for major tournaments.