Indian Volleyball

[jayakris]

Best hope is finishing 7th by defeating Pakistan. They have matches for deciding all the places

Can't say, Dinakaran. We will almost surely lose to Korea (but I have seen us occasionally causing trouble to JPN, CHN, KOR in the past, purely due to some height mismatches etc that we present, unlike against Iran; so we never know).... But then I think we may run into Taiwan in the losers' SF for the 5th thru 8th spots. Not too impossible for us to beat them (but if we are against the China-JPN loser from the other side of the bracket, we have much less of a chance). But more probable is that we will see Pakistan only in the losers "final" for the 7th-8th spot, if I am not mistaken.

[Dinakaran]

India lost to South Korea 1-3 sets with the score of 20-25,25-23,20-25,21-25. Moved to 5-8 classification.
Likely to face Taiwan.

Pakistan also lost to Australia 2-3. Won 2 sets first
and then lost 3 sets. So tough game in the cards

[jayakris]

This seems like the best team from Pakistan in quite a while. Getting opportunities in a few events at the top level in Asia thanks to our disqualification in the last 3-4 years has probably helped them. They really scared Australia, a top-3 team in Asia, if not the best. The Aussies had to pull out a 15-13 decider set to win their match. Pakistan had taken Taiwan to 5 sets too, in their pool matches. But we too played quite well in the match against Korea today, taking a set and finishing 89-95 in points, so that would help our confidence. We have a chance against Taiwan, again due to the usual height/power matchup advantages (Taiwan is a set down against Iran as of now).

[jayakris]

It will be India-Taiwan and Pakistan-China in the 5th-8th spots "semifinal". China has looked worse than usual, so Pakistan has a chance against them. We have a slightly better chance against Taiwan though. I also like the political symmetry of the matchups though

In other brackets, Kazakhstan and Qatar play for the 9th spot. That is important, because the 9th spot also makes it to the Olympics qualifying final-8, as Japan is an auto-qualifier. It is good to see KAZ finishing in the Asian top-10. Our 5-set win against them (with a nice 15-9 beat-down in the decider set) in our very first match, proved to be decisive in the end for us to make it to the final-8, with a chance for final-6 now, which will all will nicely help us get back up in the world rankings again.

[Dinakaran]

It will be India-Taiwan and Pakistan-China in the 5th-8th spots "semifinal". China has looked worse than usual, so Pakistan has a chance against them. We have a slightly better chance against Taiwan though. I also like the political symmetry of the matchups though

Strange right... once been part of it, now neighbours, & sworn enemies fight it out, if India and Pakistan wins their matches

[jayakris]

A good start, but then we fell apart this morning in Teheran, against Taiwan. 25-20, 22–25, 11–25, 16–25. That was a really disappointing show in the final 2 sets. I expected us to do a bit better even if we were to lose. Now we will end up with Pakistan or China, to try for the 7th spot.

[jayakris]

China beat Pakistan 25-17, 25-19, 15-25, 26-24. So India vs Pakistan for the 7th spot, and CHN-TPE for the 5th spot.

Iran is in the final, after beating KOR 3 sets to 1. They will play the AUS-JPN winner [Edit: As expected, it will be AUS in the final against IRI, and JPN-KOR for 3rd]

[Dinakaran]

We have to put our best show with this Pakistan team, else we can be easily defeated. Might I feel it will be tight match

[srini]

Pak could pull a set from China, for us it was a straight 0-3 defeat with China. Doesn’t auger well.Are Pak that good in Volleyball now?

[jayakris]

Pak could pull a set from China, for us it was a straight 0-3 defeat with China. Doesn’t auger well.Are Pak that good in Volleyball now?

But one set against China (again, maybe due to matchup issue like CHN has had against us too, sometime) does not mean a whole heck of a lot. Their match against Australia on the other hand was a bit of an eye-opener. Like I said, this looks like the best Pak team in the last decade or more. But they are at around our level (maybe a tad bit better than us), looking at the scores at this event. We are just getting back to the swing of things, as our players haven't played at this level for quite a few years now. I expect us to beat Pakistan, but who knows.

[jayakris]

Damnit. We lost to Pakistan just now, after a very nice come back from 2-sets down. 23–25, 21–25, 25–20, 25–19, 6–15

[jayakris]

The annoying little brothers won today. Taiwan beat China for the 5th spot too.

Iran beat AUS in straight sets to finish first. JPN over KOR in 4 sets for 3rd place. Qatar beat Kazakhstan yesterday for the 9th spot, so IRI, AUS, KOR, TPE, CHN, PAK, IND, QAT will fight it out early next year, Jan 7-12 in Jiangmen, China, for the one extra qualifying spot for the Olympics (and JPN is an automatic qualifier). I think only the winner qualifies for Tokyo2020, if I am not mistaken.

[Dinakaran]

Yes, 1 Olympic spot for asia

[srini]

The Asian qualifier for Olympics kicked off and we lost 1st match with Qatar.Tomorrow , our next match is with South Korea who also lost their opening mach with Australia.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/volleyball/ ... inst-qatar

[jayakris]

Revisiting the thread after a while. Never updated the scores from the early January qualifiers for Olympics, at Jiangmen, CHN.

The Asian top-8 played the event. India was 8th, behind Pakistan at 7th (but PAK withdrew for whatever reason and #9 Kazakhstan replaced them)

India l. Qatar, 22-25, 20-25, 23-25
India l. Australia, 27–25, 21–25, 21–25, 22–25
India l. South Korea, 19-25, 20-25, 23-25

We finished 4th in our pool-B behind QAT, RSA, AUS. No knockout or placement games after that. The standings in pool-A were IRI, CHN, TPE, KAZ. In the semifinals, IRI beat KOR and CHN beat QAT. In the final Iran beat China 3-0 (so it is not just India that loses to Iran in volleyball!) and qualified for Olympics from Asia-Oceania (Japan was an automatic entry into the field from Asia; so everybody else got screwed, with only 1 spot left)

At the Olympics,
Iran beat Poland (3-2), beat Venezuela (3-0), lost to Canada (straight sets!), lost to Japan (2-3), and lost to Italy (1-3)
Japan beat Venezuela (3-0), beat Canada (3-1), lost to Italy (1-3), lost to Poland (0-3), beat Iran (3-2)

Iran, who are human after all, lost out on tiebreakers on the 4th spot from that pool into the QF.
So only Japan made the QF. Lost (0-3) to Brazil, and that was that for Asia-Oceania in Volleyball!
Russia beat Canada, Argentina beat Italy, and France beat Poland in the other QFs.
Russia beat Brazil, France beat Argentina in SFs
France beat Russia for Gold and Argentina beat Brazil for bronze.

So, that should give an idea of where India stands in Asia, and where Asia stands in the world. Not good