Surabaya, Indonesia, July 23, 2024 – Iran’s first-hurdle clearance in their title defence, India’s incredible comeback for epic tie-break win and Saudi Arabia’s exceptional performance in hard-fought three-set thriller all highlighted action-packed Day 1 of the 22nd Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship at Jawa Pos Arena and Gelora Pancasila here on Tuesday.
The 22nd edition of the Asian Men’s U20 Championship, which serves as the Asia’s qualification tournament for the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship, got underway on Tuesday, with a strong field of 16 teams showcasing their talents in pool round-robin preliminaries in efforts of finishing top two in their respective pools to secure their slots in round of last 8 teams.
The topflight championship in Surabaya will qualify four teams excluding Iran for the next year’s U21 World Championship. As current world champions, Iran have automatically qualified.
Six out of eight matches contested on Tuesday saw strong teams power past spirited opponents with straight-set sweeps. Chinese Taipei beat Qatar 3-0, Saudi Arabia beat Australia 3-0, Iran beat China 3-0, hosts Indonesia beat Hong Kong, China 3-0, Japan beat Kuwait 3-0 and Korea beat Vietnam 3-0. Only two matches turned out to be hotly-contested, with India beating Bangladesh 3-2 and Kazakhstan beating Thailand with the similar margin 3-2.
At Jawa Pos Arena (Main Hall), Chinese Taipei, which finished a distant 14th position at the previous edition two years ago in Riffa, Bahrain, registered their first Pool B win in Surabaya. Powerful Jheng Wei-Jhih and Chang Hao-Po steered Chinese Taipei to comfortable straight-set 25-16, 25-13, 25-20 win against Qatar, 11th place in Riffa.
Outside hitter Jheng Wei-Jhih chipped in 12 points, all in attack, for Chinese Taipei, while fellow outside hitter Chang Hao-Po and middle blocker Chang Min-Quan added another 10 and 8 points respectively. No Qatari player reached double digits, with opposite Elzanary Badr scoring only 9 points on the team’s loss.
Chinese Taipei will next go up against defending and seven-time champions Iran, while Qatar challenge China on Wednesday.
In another Pool B encounter on Tuesday, hefty Pouya Ariakhah, who stands 205cm tall and weighs 93kg, scored a match-high 22 points to lift Iran’s hard-fought 3-0 (29-27, 25-21, 25-18) triumph over the formidable Chinese in 87 minutes.
Iran, powered by Armin Ghelichniazi, who won the Best Middle Blocker at the…
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