Riffa, Bahrain, August 24, 2022 – Reigning champions Iran, hosts Bahrain, Korea, Thailand, Bangladesh and China topped their respective pools at the completion of the pool round-robin preliminaries of the 21st Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship at the Isa Sports City Hall on Wednesday.
With top two teams from each pool advancing to the highly-anticipated second round for 1st-12th places, teams finishing second – Saudi Arabia, India, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Pakistan also had a chance to prove their abilities and strive for their success in this topflight championship and the two berths on offer for the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship.
Teams finishing third places from each pool suffered relegation to classification round for 13th-18th places. They comprised former three-time champions Japan, Hong Kong China, Kuwait, Australia and Chinese Taipei, which finished sixth place at the previous edition, also held here in 2018.
On Wednesday, the last day of the pool plays to determine the top two teams of each pool, teams came out in full force to squeeze through to the second round of the top teams which saw three of five matches contested end in hard-fought five-set thrillers.
In Pool A, Hong Kong, China failed to make their mark to succumb to two straight losses in the first two days and faced relegation to next contest the classification round for lower-ranked sides. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia fought it all out for the top spot in Pool A which saw the host side shrug off rust to engineer a strong fightback for a dramatic four-set win 16-25, 27-25, 25-22, 25-20.
Defending and six-time champions Iran gained a stranglehold on India to pull off comfortable straight sets 25-20, 25-10, 25-19 in their last Pool B encounter on Wednesday.
In Pool C, Qatar survived a sturdy challenge from Kuwait to beat the spirited opponents in exhausting five sets 25-18, 23-25, 18-25, 25-19, 15-8.
There was no match contested in Pool D on Wednesday as the pool plays came to a close on Tuesday with Thailand demolishing the United Arab Emirates in straight sets. Due to the withdrawal of Kazakhstan, only two teams remained in contention in this pool.
In Pool E, Iraq, Bangladesh and Australia battled hard to remain on course for the fight in the elite round of the 1st-12th places. Bangladesh set the pace with a dramatic 3-1 win against Iraq on Monday, but Iraq regained the lost pride to defeat Australia with the same margin 3-1 the…
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