Elite eight set, Ahli bow out

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

The quarter-final pools were confirmed last night, with Bahrain’s Al Ahli narrowly missing out, in the 2023 Asian Men’s Club Volleyball Championship, being hosted this week by the Kingdom.

Top contenders the Suntory Sunbirds from Japan, South Korea’s Korean Air Jumbos Pro-Volleyball Club, Shahdab Yazd of Iran and Police Sporting Club of Qatar—all of whom had already secured their qualification to the next phase prior to Tuesday’s play—were joined in the elite eight by Indonesia’s Jakarta Bhayangkara Presisi, Kuwait Sporting Club of Kuwait, Bayankhongor Crownd Geo VC from Mongolia and South Gas Sports Club of Iraq.

Hosts Ahli were unceremoniously eliminated from further title contention despite winning their final assignment of the preliminary round against the Canberra Heat.

Jakarta Bhayangkara sealed the hosts’ fate with a stunning victory against the Jumbos, which also earned the Indonesians first place in Pool A.

Shahdab topped Pool B, the Sunbirds were first in Pool C and Police led Pool D.

Wednesday is a rest day and action in the quarter-final and consolation pools begins Thursday.

The Sunbirds and Bayankhongor are in quarter-final Pool E along with Jakarta Bhayangkara and Jumbos; while Pool F features Shahdab, South Gas, Police and Kuwait.

The remaining eight sides are Diamond Food Fine ChefAir Force of Thailand, Khaypil Sports Club of Yemen, Ahli and Canberra in consolation Pool G; along with Taichung Bank of Chinese-Taipei, Kam Air of Afghanistan, Atyrau VC of Kazakhstan and Aspiring Volleyball Team from Hong Kong in consolation Pool H.

Resounding

Ahli completed their preliminary round campaign with a resounding 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-20) victory over their Aussie rivals.

The Bahrainis were in control from the opening serve and earned their second win of the tournament to go to five points on the Pool A standings, but it was not enough to send them through.

Brazilian Gabriel Candido scored 21 points to spearhead the Ahli cause, while Mohammed Yaqoob had eight and Ali Alsairafi seven. Kevin Phang and Trent O’Dea finished with nine points apiece to pace Canberra in their third straight defeat.

In Jakarta Bhayangkara’s big win over Jumbos in Tuesday’s other Pool A fixture, Farhan Halim put on an impressive 24-point effort to help lift his club against their heavily favoured opponents.

The Indonesians needed a win to ensure their spot in the next stage along with the Koreans, and they delivered superbly with a 3-1 (30-28, 25-17, 22-25, 25-21) result.

Mohammadjav Manavinezhad added 21 and Ugandan Daudi Okello scored 17 for Jakarta Bhayangkara, while Donghyeok Im finished with 21 to pace Jumbos.

Jakarta Bhayangkara’s Chinese head coach Jiang Jie commented: “It was a very tough game.

Korea are a very good team. We earned a good result and I am very happy that we are working very hard.”

Mongolia’s Bayankhongor secured a hard-earned berth in the quarter-final pools from Pool C following a stunning 3-0 (25-19, 25-18, 25-15) sweep of Diamond Food of Thailand.

Bayankhongor came away with the full three points to add to the crucial point they previously earned in their five-set loss to Yemen’s Khaypil Sports Club on Sunday.

That was enough to put them through ahead of the Thais, who finished with three points from their lone victory and two straight-set losses.

Batsuuri Battur had a gamehigh 24 points to spearhead the Mongolians, while teammate Bayarsaikhan Batsukh added 13.

Batsukh commented postgame: “Today’s match was very hard but we prepared very well last night. After our match with Japan yesterday, we trained again.

We looked at the Thai positions very well and that helped us. “Today we were all fighting together and talking with each other, and that helped us understand each other well.”

Sweep

Also in Pool C, Japan’s Suntory Sunbirds, runners-up from last year’s tournament, completed a clean sweep of the preliminaries with a resounding 3-0 (25-17, 25- 17, 25-15) victory over Yemen’s Khaypil.

For the second straight game, the Japanese opted to rest some key players but were still dominant.

Chinese ace Shikun Peng and Kenshin Kuwada had 10 points apiece to pace the Sunbirds. Russian star Dmitriy Muserskiy added nine points in his limited time on the court.

The Egyptian pair of Amr Elawwad and Essa Elhossiny scored 10 points apiece for Khaypil in the loss.

In Pool B, Iraq’s South Gas secured their elite eight status after defeating Kam Air VC of Afghanistan 3-0 (25-18, 25-22, 25-19).

The Iraqis claimed their second win of this stage with one loss for six points, and they finished behind Shahdab on the group table.

Russian Aleksandr Petrov and Bulgarian Todor Skrimov scored 15 points apiece for the winners, while three players had 10 each for Kam Air, namely Mohammed Wardak, Ghulam Rasool Hidari and Sayed Habib Yousufi.

Shahdab completed their three-game sweep of Pool B with a commanding 3-0 (25-13, 25- 19, 25-20) decision against Taichung Bank of Chinese-Taipei.