Thai spikers skewer Koreans
After three straight defeats, Thailand finally scored their second win in the Volleyball Nations League with a 3-1 demolition of South Korea in Pool 7 in Macau yesterday.
Utilising superior teamwork and accuracy, Thailand won the fifth match in the League series 25-21 19-25 25-19 25-20 and bounced back from successive losses to Italy and Poland in Poland last week, and to China on Tuesday. They had previously won last week’s opening match with Germany.
They will face Belgium at 3.30pm today in their the final Pool 7 match before returning home for Pool 11 at Hua Mark Indoor Stadium from June 4-6.
Thailand coach Danai Sriwacharamaytakul said: "Today we faced a Korea team with lots of young and energetic players. Their serves are really powerful and they have great pace. Our team showed great team spirit today and this definitely helped us to win this tight match."
Thailand captain Nootsara Tomkom said: "Korea gave us a hard game today with their strong serves. We had problems with our reception in the last match but fortunately we made improvements today, which allowed us to string some good attacks especially in the crucial sets three and four."
Korea coach Stefano Lavarini said: "I felt very happy to play against Thailand because their team play in a unique style and playing them can make us improve. We did not start the match well, got better in the second set, then Thailand started giving us more pressure in the third and fourth sets. They showed their quality and fighting spirit and totally deserved to win. The only disappointment I have today is that we did not show the same mentality and could not perform at the same level like yesterday. Congratulations again to Thailand team and we will do our best to keep playing at a high level."
