Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

For 5th place
India l Japan 2-3 (25-23 25-18 17-25 22-25 19-21)

Indians lost big opportunity of finishing on 5th position ... After winning tight first set they won the second set comfortably to lead 2-0 ... But from the third set Japanese team started to turn table on Indians ... Japanese won the third set comfortably and then managed to win the fourth to take match into decider ... In the decider Indians tried hard but Japanese managed to complete victory in extra points ... So with that Indians finished on 6th position.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

For 5th to 8th position
India bt Pakistan 3-1 (16-25 25-23 28-26 25-20)

We again faced Pakistan in placing match ... We started tentatively and Pakistan take full advantage of it to comfortably won the first set ... In the second set both teams had chances but we won it winning crucial points in the end ... In the third set Pakistan take early lead and controlling the set ... We kept fighting to won it in extra points ... In 4th set we played superior game than Pakistan to won it comfortably ... So now we will play match for 5th place against Japan, who defeated Sri Lanka comfortably.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

Quarter Finals
Australia bt Pakistan 3-1 (25-16 25-23 22-25 25-15)
India l China 0-3 (25-27 20-25 20-25)
Iran bt Sri Lanka 3-0 (25-16 25-18 25-15)
Korea bt Japan 3-2 (25-21 28-30 23-25 25-17 16-14)

Chinese team take 2/3 pts early in the first set and managed to keep till end ... We saved couple of set points before Chinese team converted 3rd set point to win the first set ... Same story repeated in the second game, Chinese team take early 2/3 pts lead ... We managed to reduce it to 17-18 but then Chinese team won next few points to won this set easily ... And same repeated in the third set also ... Again we were equal with Chinese team till 17-all but this time also Chinese team won crucial pts to complete victory in straight sets.

So again we failed to take advantage of good showing in last few matches and lost crucial knockout match to play for 5th to 8th position.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

Pool E
India bt Pakistan 3-2 (25-23 25-23 19-25 18-25 15-3)
Iran bt Japan 3-0 (25-22 25-22 25-17)

Quarter Finals
Iran vs Sri Lanka
India vs China
Japan vs Korea
Australia vs Pakistan

We managed to win closely fought first set ... In the beginning of the second set India were down 1-5 and Pakistan managed to lead better part of the set ... But Indians caught with them in 19-all and from 22-23 they won last 3 pts to won the second set ... Pakistan fought back and won the third and fourth sets convincingly.

In the decider Indians take 4-1 lead, which they managed to keep until end and converted 2nd match point to complete victory and qualify to quarter-final on the second position from Pool E ... In quarter-final we r facing big challenge of China.

In this match Pakistan outnumbered us in points, 109-102.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

Pool E
India bt Japan 3-1 (20-25 30-28 25-21 25-23)
Iran bt Pakistan 3-0 (25-18 25-14 25-11)

Terrific start in the second round which we were hoping for Indian team ... Started with huge upset win over defending Asian Champion Japan in comeback victory after losing the first set ... In the second set also our team hanged until end to win tight set in extra points.

So very important 3 pts for us as we qualified for this group with 0 pt ... Now win against Pakistan can give us big chance of qualifying for quarter-final in the second position.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

Pool A
India l Iran 0-3 (25-27 17-25 25-27)
Chinese Taipei bt Afghanistan 3-0 (25-12 25-19 25-16)

So again we played close match against Iran taking 2 sets into extra points but failed to turn table ... That means our record remain intact that how much close we play against Iran we end up losing ... In the second round we r in Pool E with Iran, Japan and Pakistan ... I m hoping upset win against Japan and very close fought win against Pakistan.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

Pool A
India bt Afghanistan 3-0 (25-9 25-13 25-11)
Iran bt Chinese Taipei 3-0 (25-17 26-24 25-15)

Our men won convincingly against Afghanistan, which was expected considering Afghanis first major International tournament.

So with this win we enter into the second round with Iranians ... Tomorrow our match with Iran will decide who will take a win result into the second round.

Volleyball News
At the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship, Tehran, Iran

Pool A
India bt Chinese Taipei 3-2 (25-20 20-25 27-25 20-25 15-12)
Iran bt Afghanistan 3-0 (25-8 25-19 25-13)

In the 16th Asian Sr. Men’s Volleyball Championship we r in Pool A with host Iran, Chinese Taipei and Afghanistan.

We messed up easy match into nail-biting ... So despite fighting win I m disappointed over our teams effort but at least winning start for us.

Our women team lost against Australian in 9th-12th placing match in 4 sets (25-23 23-25 23-25 21-25)

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

7th Position
August 10
India l Spain 2-3 (25-21 25-17 21-25 12-25 17-19)
Disappointing last few matches for our team ... Today also they lost against lowly ranked Spanish team ... They were leading 2-0 before losing next 3 sets ... So we ended one position below than our world rank.

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

5th - 8th Positions
August 9
India l Iran 0-3 (11-25 22-25 21-25)

India's poor record against Iranian team in international tournaments continues ... After losing the first set in horrific fashion our spikers managed decent performance in next 2 sets but failed to win the set.

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

POOL F
August 6
India bt Brazil 3-2 (36-34 22-25 21-25 25-17 16-14)
Serbia bt Argentina 3-2 (24-26 25-18 20-25 25-10 15-9)

Classification Places 5-8
August 9
India vs Iran (10:00 - Rio de Janeiro)
Brazil vs Spain (18:30 - Rio de Janeiro)

Our boys should blame themselves for blowing opportunity of reaching semi-final at this World championship ... Our choking against Serbia cost us place in the semis, we were leading 24-21 in 4th game before losing that ... What a missed opportunity by our youngsters.

In the last match of Pool our boys showed fighting performance against host and mighty Brazilian team ... They won the long first set in extra points but insted of taking control of the match they lost next 2 sets ... But in this match they made excellent fight back and won the fourth set easily ... Again very close fight in the fifth but again Indian boys prevailed in the extra points to complete memorable victory.

We ended last in the group behind Russia, Serbia and Brazil ... Now we will play matches for 5-8 classification places ... On 9th August we r facing our old nemesis Iran, against whom we struggled at Asian or World level tournament.

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

POOL F
August 6
India l Serbia 1-3 (13-25 25-19 22-25 25-27)

We started badly against Serbia and they take full advantage of it winning the first set easily but from the second set we showed lot more co-ordination on the court ... We came back in the match winning the second set ... In the third and fourth sets we ran closely with Serbian team but failed to won crucial points to lost the match ... Frankly after their yesterday's performance against Argentine team I was expecting upset from us ... So despite good performance I m disappointed with this result.

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

POOL F
August 5
India l Argentina 1-3 (21-25 25-23 16-25 19-25)
Brazil bt Serbia 3-0 (25-16 25-19 25-21)

Our boys played excellent match against WR #1 Argentine boys ... After losing the first game they fought back to win the second game ... But Argentine team showed their class in the final 2 games ... Still good performance from our boys,

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

POOL C
August 3
India bt Egypt 3-0 (25-17 25-19 25-18)

We qualified for the second round with comfortable win over WR #10 Egyptian team in the straight sets ... Our boys didn't loose the control of the match from the start and dominated to complete the win.

In the second round we will be in Pool F - B1, A2, D1, C2.

So in our Pool F - WR #1 Argentina is joined as a winner of Pool B after winning all matches ... WR #5 Serbia also will be joining with winning all matches from Pool D (their last match is against Canada) ... Anyone from 3 teams, WR #6 Brazil, WR #9 USA or WR #4 Iran, can join us from Pool A.

Updated after final Pool matches - USA defeated Japan 3-1 and pushed them to 3rd place ... So In our Pool F looks WR #1 Argentina, WR #5 Serbia, WR #6 Brazil and WR #7 India.

Pool E - WR #2 Russia, WR #4 Iran, WR #9 USA and WR #11 Spain.

Volleyball News
At the 2011 FIVB Men's Junior World Championship, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

WR#7 India in Pool C with WR#2 Russia, WR#10 Egypt, WR#36 Germany ... Tricky group considering 3 top-10 teams in the group ... Russia defeated us and Egyptian teams very comfortably ... Both teams defeated Germany losing a set ... So today's winner between India and Egypt will join Russian team in top 8.

POOL C
August 1
India bt Germnay 3-1 (19-25 25-21 25-23 25-20)
Russia bt Egypt 3-0 (25-16 25-16 25-13)

August 2
Egypt bt Germany 3-1 (26-24 25-20 22-25 25-23)
Russia bt India 3-0 (25-23 25-17 25-18)