Qatar’s Al Arabi Sports Club, who had already secured their place in the classification round, suffered their first defeat at the 2017 Asian Men’s Club Volleyball Championship in Ninh Binh, Vietnam, yesterday.
After two clean sweep victories over Canberra Heat and Yan Chai, Arabi fought three close games before going down 27-25, 26-24, 25-22 against VC Altay.
With the win, the Kazakh club made it to the last eight with a perfect record in the group stages.
Altay VC, who had finished fifth at the previous edition in Myanmar last year, faced a tough task against Al Arabi, but put their act together to tactically match last year’s silver medallists.
Their efforts worked out pretty well as the Kazakhs went 27-25, 26-24 for a commanding 2-0 lead.
Al Arabi improved their first-ball reception, hoping to make amends in the third set. Nonetheless, Altay were just in terrific form, coming up with exceptional tactics including Vitaliy Vorivodin’s spectacular attacks and splendid teamwork to capture the set 25-22 and match.
Hard-attacking Vasyl Tuphii scored a match-high 17 points for Altay from 13 kills, 2 blocks and 2 aces, while Vitaliy Vorivodin contributed 10 points. Gyorgy Grozer scored 15 points for Al Arabi.
“Al Arabi are a strong team with many good players. But today maybe they had some problems. It was not their best day. I am quite satisfied with my team’s performance. They did a good job on attacks and defence. We prepared intensively about one month for this championship as we would like to play in the final round,” Altay head coach Rafail Gilyazutdinov said.
In their Pool C matches, Altay and Al Arabi had already made it to the next round after two straight wins. After the match yesterday, Altay topped Pool C with nine points with three wins. Al Arabi secured second place with six points from two wins. Yan Chai finished third, with winless Canberra Heat in fourth.