Sri Lanka goes down fighting to Thailand

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Sri Lanka v Thailand - 2nd Asian Men's U23 Volleyball Championship 2017
Sri Lanka v Thailand - 2nd Asian Men's U23 Volleyball Championship 2017

Sri Lanka’s ambition of making it to the top eight teams diminished as they went down 3 sets to 1 against Thailand in the 2nd Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship.

Sri Lanka lost to Japan on the opening day 25-14, 25-17 & 25-13 while Thailand took Japan all the way to the 5th set but lost 3-2. Thailand lost an exhilarating 1st set 28-30 before winning the 2nd 25-20. Japan won the 3rd set 25-19 and Thailand won the 4th 25-22 taking the game into a deciding 5th set. In the decider Japan was too much for Thailand going down 15-8.

Japan too strong for Sri Lanka; Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Iran win

Japan secured a comfortable 3 set win against Sri Lanka in the 2nd Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship in Ardabil, Iran.

For Sri Lanka to make it to the top 8 team battle they had to win the match against Thailand and they started off brightly winning the 1st set 25-23. However Thailand bounced back to win the next three sets 21-25, 19-25 & 18-25.

Sri Lanka was neck and neck in each of the final three sets but was unable to hold on towards the business stage of the sets. Sri Lanka however produced a much improved performance against Thailand than they did against Japan.

Sri Lanka will now look to finish in 9th place where they will face either Australia or China and Uzbekistan for the 9th-11th places.

From pool A Iran and Pakistan qualified for the top 8 while Chinese Taipei and Kazakhstan qualified from pool B.