As the pool round-robin preliminaries of the 2023 AVC Challenge Cup for Men in Chinese Taipei came to a close on Monday, excitement reaches fever pitch, with top two teams from each pool (totaling 12) contesting a single-elimination knockout format to strive for their slots in Top 6.
Participating teams tried to give their best on Monday, the final day of the pool play to decide the top two teams in each pool, resulting in plenty of exciting moments, from high-scoring feats, returning and incoming stars, down to spectacular plays.
The Monday’s encounter saw three teams from South East Asia comprising Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia fared pretty well to pull off great wins against their respective opponents.
The opening clash in Pool D between Philippines and Mongolia turned out to be a thrilling see-saw battle. As Philippines finished fifth place at this year’s South East Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia, Mongolia came in fourth place at the last year’s AVC Men’s Challenge Cup in Kyrgyzstan.
Hard-hitting Marck Jesus Espejo scored a match-high 36 points from 29 attacks, 2 blocks and 5 aces to steer Philippines to terrific comeback 3-2 (22-25, 25-21, 26-24, 23-25, 15-12) victory against Mongolia and two wins on the trot in the preliminaries at Taipei Gym.
Fresh from 3-0 rout of Macao, China the previous day, Philippines captured the top spot in Pool D with 5 points from two straight wins. Mongolia came in second place in the Pool with just one point behind the Filipinos, leaving winless Macao, China to finish in third place.
In Pool B, world No.60 and former consecutive four-time SEA Games champions Thailand, which earlier succumbed to a straight-set loss to formidable Korea, revived their fortunes on Monday to demolish Saudi Arabia, second place at the previous edition in Kyrgyzstan last year, in comfortable three-setter 25-20, 25-16, 25-17 at the University of Taipei Hall.
Anut Promchan chipped in with 15 points including 12 attacks from 24 attempts for Thailand. No Saudi Arabian player scored double-digit marker, with Jawad Alkhawaher claiming 8 points on the team’s losing effort.
Defending and successive three-time SEA Games winners Indonesia also made their mark in their tough Pool F clash against Bahrain.
Star spiker Rivan Nurmulki was on fire as the determined Indonesians struggled hard to finally put it past the spirited Bahrainis in hard-fought five-set thriller 33-31, 25-27, 21-25, 25-23, 15-11 in the preliminaries at…
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