Day 5 Wrap-Up
Vinh Phuc, Vietnam, April 29, 2023 – Sport Center 1, the only unbeaten team in the 2023 Asian Women’s Club Volleyball Championship, and Diamond Food Fine Chef-Air Force topped their pools as the continent’s topflight club championship has reached a fever pitch, with the Top Four teams confirmed for the Monday’s action-packed semifinals to fight for their maiden tile.
At the end of the pool round-robin preliminaries on Saturday, Sport Center 1, fielding all Vietnam national team players in their final preparation for the next week’s 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia, and King Whale Taipei, winners at the Taiwan Enterprise League in current 2022/23 season, finished top two in Pool A.
Diamond Food, the former consecutive two-time Thailand League champions, and Liaoning Donghua VC, the team finishing 7th at the Chinese V. League in current 2022/23 season, captured the top two spots in Pool B.
The above quartet set up the Monday’s do-or-die semifinals, with Diamond Food challenging King Whale Taipei at 4.30pm local time and Liaoning Donghua going up against hosts Sport Center 1 at 7.30pm.
Among the semifinalists, only Diamond Food made the podium just once last year when the annual competition took place in Semey, Kazakhstan and the Thai outfits earned a well-deserved third place after powering past Iran’s Barij Essence 3-1 in the bronze-medal match.
Sport Center 1 also hope for their best result for their unprecedented title on home soil. Since the tournament inception in 1999, Vietnam made the semifinals just once, with Thong tin LienVietPostBank finishing in fourth place after straight-set loss to Kazakhstan’s Zhetyssu Almaty on home soil.
For Chinese Taipei, Chung Shan were within a whisker of winning gold medal at the 2005 and 2006 Asian Women’s Club Championship, only to return with silver medal in both occasions. This time, King Whale Taipei, silver medallists at the 2022/23 PVL Invitational Conference in Philippines and gold medallists at the 2022/23 Taiwan Enterprise League, have their sights firmly set on handing Chinese Taipei’s the historic title.
Liaoning Donghua have never participated in the Asian Women’s Club Championship, but hope high to make their mark this time. China made it to the semifinals almost in every edition. Only in 2007 in Vinh Phuc here when Dalian Huanyu finished a distant 6th position out of 8 teams participating in the championship. China did not send any team to the 2021…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Asian Volleyball Confederation…