India, Iran to clash for Asian volleyball title

TDT | Manama                                                             

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

India and Iran powered into the gold medal match of the 21st Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship last night. India clinched their berth with a resounding 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-18, 25-17) victory over Thailand in a drama-filled semi-final clash, while defending champions Iran outclassed South Korea 3-1 (25-22, 24-26, 25-17, 25-19) to make it to their fourth straight final, including ninth in the competition’s last 10 editions.

With their victories, India and Iran also secured their berths in the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship as representatives of the Asian Volleyball Confederation. As the losing semi-finalists, the Thais and South Koreans will now contend for the competition’s bronze medals. Both the final and match for third place will take place this evening as part of a four-match progamme on the tournament’s final day. A pair of classification games will also be played from 11.30am at the Isa bin Rashid Arena at Isa Sports City in Riffa. All are welcome to attend. Entrance is free of charge.

Following tonight’s final, the awards presentation and closing ceremony will be held. In India’s victory, Kumar Aman finished as their leading scorer with 18 points, while Chaudhary Sameer, one of the top players in the competition, added nine points. Kittipong Sangsak paced Thailand with a game-high 29 points in the loss. The Indians qualified for the tournament final for the third time in their history, adding to their other appearances in 1994 and 2002.

They will be hoping to capture the title for the first time. India skipper Dushyant Singh said: “After taking the first set, we were extremely happy. But after we lost the second set, we bounced back and played extraordinary. “We are extremely happy to be in the final and to have qualified for the world championship.

It is never easy to do that.” I n d i a head coach G E Sridharan added: “Our team performed today very well. I hope we can do better than this in the final tomorrow.” For Iran, who will be gunning for their seventh championship, Amir Mohammad Golzadeh finished with 20 points to lead his team against South Korea. Pouria Hosseinkhanzadeh added 17 while Erfan Norouzi had 12. Hyeonil Seo and Yunsoo Lee scored 13 apiece to pace South Korea. Iran head coach Gholamreza Momeni Moghadam said after the match: “My players will play very well. We had two targets in this tournament: first is to be one of the two teams to go to the world championship next year, and the other is to win the title. “We had five months training and a camp for this team to be able to win the tournament.

I am very proud of my boys. They will be the next senior team players very soon.” In today’s classification contests, hosts Bahrain defeated Iraq 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-17). Sayed Hashem Ali had 10 points as the Bahrainis’ leading scorer, while Hasan Taha paced the Iraqis with 13. Bahrain will now battle for seventh place overall with Pakistan, who beat Saudi 3-1 (28-26, 14-25, 26-24, 25-18) today. Muhammad Ajmal was the leading scorer for the Pakistanis with 20 points, while Hassan Akaibi paced the Saudis in the loss with 22 markers. Bahrain and Pakistan’s clash is scheduled for 2pm today, after Iraq take on Saudi for ninth overall at 11.30am.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh clinched fifth place overall in a remarkable result for the tournament debutants. They took their final placing following a hard-earned 3-2 (32-30, 25-19, 23-25, 22-25, 15-13) win against former four-time champions China in an exciting match. Sadi Mohammod Shafin was their leading scorer with an impressive 28 points. Following their victory, team captain Tanveer Hossain Tonmoy said: “We played very well in the first two sets, but in the third and fourth, some of our players lost their energy.

In the last set we were able to come back and take the win. “This was the first time for us to play in this kind of tournament, and we got fifth, so this is a very good result and we are very happy. “We thank our supporters who cheered for us in all our games here.” Elsewhere today, Qatar claimed 11th place on the final classification after defeating fellow-Gulf side the UAE 3-0 (25-16, 25-21, 25-19). Mehdi Salah was their top scorer with 18 points.