Urmia, Iran, August 23, 2023 – Iran and Japan punched their tickets to the semi-finals on Wednesday in the on-going 22nd Asian Senior Men’s Volleyball Championship at Al Ghadir Hall, while China, Korea, Qatar and Chinese Taipei all made it through to quarterfinals stage.
Each of the advancing teams won their respective matches in the Final 12 as the high-intensity knockout games in the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) tournament are now underway.
The Iranians and Japanese, both finalists from the previous edition in 2021, barged directly into the Final Four with emphatic shutout wins over Pakistan and Bahrain, respectively.
As per the unique tournament format, they made it to the quarterfinals, where China will take on Korea and Qatar will face Chinese Taipei to determine the other two semi-finalists.
The quarters are scheduled to take place Thursday and the semifinals on Friday. These games will set the stage for the gold and bronze medal matches, as well as the final ranking fixtures, on the championship’s concluding day on Saturday.
Reigning and consecutive two-time champions Iran stayed in the hunt for an unprecedented title treble after easily disposing of Pakistan 3-0 (25-18, 25-15, 25-13) backed yet again by their massive legion of supporters who packed Urmia’s Al Ghadir Hall.
In this match, outside hitter Meisam Salehi had a team-high 18 points for the Iranians including five blocks, while opposite spiker Amin Esmaeilnezhad contributed 11 markers, all in attack.
For Pakistan, opposite Murad Khan finished with nine points as their leading scorer, while Usman Faryad Ali and Murad Jehan each had seven points.
“My players found the criticality of this stage and were showing quality performance from the very first,” Iran’s head coach Behrouz Ataei Nouri highlighted. “Pakistan was very unlucky that they had to play with us in front of these huge passionate fans. It is not important who we play against in the semi-final, we will focus on our goal only.”
The Iranians, currently ranked number 10 in the world, are hoping to become the first team ever to win the Asian senior men’s crown three times in a row. Apart from this current run, five other sides had won back-to-back titles in the past, including Iran themselves in 2011 and 2013; Japan twice in 2015 and 2017 as well as in 1983 and 1987; Korea in 2001 and 2003; and China in 1997 and 1999. None of them went on to claim a third successive championship.
The Iranians have a rest day Thursday and…
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