Both China and South Korea stunned their opponents respectively
on Wednesday to set up their fourth final clash in the men's
volleyball tournament at the Asian Games.
China have won all three head-to-head finals in 1986, 1990 and
1998.
Zhou Jian'an, newly appointed head coach of China, explained the
Doha journey as if climbing over three high mountains before the
championship.
China tramped over Kazakhstan 25-21, 25-20, 24-26, 25-20 on
Monday. And their semifinal win over Saudi Arabia proved to be even
tougher as China, second seed of the tournament, had to spend one
hour and 39 minutes to tame their high-spirit rivals 25-20, 25-11,
23-25, 22-25 and 15-13.
With the cheering of more than 100 fans who danced and sung with
drumbeats at the stands, the Saudi players, despite the loss of the
first two sets, fought bravely to win back the following two
sets.
However, China, who had a jinx of losing game after early
ascendancy, released themselves from the curse with sound defense
and strong will, taking the decider 15-13.
The spikes of Saudi hitters Al Bakhet Ahmed A and Al Makawni
Yassir M, who contributed their team 15 and 13 points respectively,
have posed a great challenge to China's defense, but their shine
were overshadowed by China's Shen Qiong and captain Sui Shengsheng,
who scored 20 and 17 points respectively.
"This is a very tough match and I'm glad my players finally win
under high pressure," said coach Zhou Jian'an, "We were making
preparations to play Japan all the time and we didn't expect Saudi
Arabia will win the semifinal."
In another semifinal, defending champion South Korea beat host
Qatar 25-27, 25-21, 25-22 and 25-16 in front of more than 2,000
local fans.
The hosts are expected to win their first Asian Games volleyball
medal on their own soil when they face Saudi Arabia on Thursday in
the third-place playoff.
In other two matches of the day, Japan stormed for a
straight-set victory over Kazakhstan and will compete for the fifth
place on Thursday against Iran, the silver medallist of 2002 Busan
Asiad, who downed Bahrain 3-1 on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain entered the quarterfinals as top
finishers of Pool A and Pool B in preliminaries, while hosts Qatar
directly made the last eight with five world championship
participants, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Iran and
Kazakhstan.
The final will be held on Thursday at the Al-Rayyan Indoor
Hallin northwestern suburb of Doha.
(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2006)