Russia suffers third defeat in World Volleyball C'ships

Russia suffers third defeat in World Volleyball C'ships

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Although the Russian women's volleyball team is one of the
strongest in the world, the men's team does not share the same
ranking. At the U-185 World Volleyball Championships it suffered
1-3 defeat at the hands of Japan in Friday's match.

Russia has lost its two previous matches against Myanmar and
Indonesia. The team will play its fourth and final match against
Chinese Taipei on Sunday.

The Japanese team, one of the strongest in the competition,
proved its superiority over the Russians in a match that lasted
less than 90-minutes.

Taking a 5-0 lead in the beginning of the first set, Japan's
Yasuyuki Ueno threatened the Russian defense line with his
powerful spikes throughout the game.

The Russians, who seemed nervous at first, were unable to
develop their game and could do nothing to prevent the Japanese
from scoring against them. Japan managed to wrap up the first set
25-10.

Determined Russian spikers, twins Dmitri and Serguei
Mikhailov, continued to develop their team's powerful style by
hammering dozens of spikes toward Japan's defense line.

Russia then managed to take the lead halfway through the game
and closed the game with 25-22 win over the Japanese.

The second set victory injected new hopes into the Russian
players as they picked up a 7-5 lead in the third set.

However, Japanese blockers Satoshi Inobe and Shunici Ogata
managed to stymie the attacks from the twins, and the top scorer
from the two previous games, Yasuyuki Ueno, showed no mercy to
the Russians.

Japan managed to equalize at 7-7 and powered ahead to win the
third set 25-22.

With another set to come, the Japanese players appeared
determined to send the Russians home, and took the fourth set 25-
18.

Assistant coach to the Russian team, Ilya Volodarskiy,
admitted that his team had failed once again to perform well
against Japan.

"Without doubt, our players are good at attacking but we have
a very weak defense as most of our players have had no experience
in playing this sort of game before," Volodarskiy told reporters.

Commenting on his team's last game against Chinese Taipei,
Volodarskiy said that he would conduct a review based on his
team's previous performances and try to devise a strategy to beat
Chinese Taipei.

"We don't want to leave Indonesia without any victories at
all," Volodarskiy said.

The Japanese head coach, Iwao Hara, said he was pleased as
most of his players had performed optimally.

"We're relieved that we have been able to win our first two
games. We hope we can continue like this in our next match," Hara
said.

In the second match, Chinese Taipei defeated Myanmar 3-2 (25-
15, 21-25, 25-23, 21-25, 15-13).