Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, July 11, 2022 – India finished the competition at the 21st Asian Women’s U20 Volleyball Championship, taking 7th place after taking the tie-break, 3-2 ( 16-25, 25-11, 29-27, 16-25, 16-14) against hosts Kazakhstan on Monday morning at NU Sports Centre.
Gopika Gunasekaran led all scorers in the field with 34 points from 32 attacks and 2 service aces.
Mostly, she provided the points upon the decisive moments of the match.
Kazakhstan started the match strong, as they showed good rhythm in their attacks. They also put their tall frontline to use, connecting on block-defence against their opponents’ assigned hitters. The Kazakh serves also performed well as they scored off several aces.
Middle Yuliya Yakimova and opposite Dilyar Amangeldi greatly helped in scoring for the host team.
India were unable to match the level of the host team, and needed a big restart in the second set. Gopika and Lavanya Chandu took turns to score from the flanks. They have found their usual pacing and worked doubly hard on their floor coverage.
Time then came for India to serve strategically. This gave their opponents much challenge in reverting to their great, successful start.
The match came to a thrilling exchange as teams nearly matched each other in skill and quality.
India continued to harness the power of Gopika from the wing and the backline, while Kazakhstan relied on their strong middle game.
Later, India seemed to have lost their composure and fell to crucial errors. Meanwhile,the hosts vastly improved in their passing. They ran their plays more fluidly and grew confident in forcing the decider.
Kazakhstan continued to play more solidly in the tie-break, serving well, and running the middle with Yakimova.
India managed to stay within good distance, even with their crucial, unnecessary errors. Gopika surged with a heap of heroics to finally take the victory.
India captain Pal Prerona expressed her delight in finishing the competition on a winning note, and now looks ahead to the future of the team.
“This is my first championship, and also my first captainship. I learned a lot about myself and about the team, but mostly, we need to work harder. We need to train more so we can play better in future matches,” said Prerona.
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