The 14th Asian Women's Volleyball Championship continued the
round-robin preliminaries on Thursday as strong teams all
comfortably registered their opening victories in straight-set
wins.
The host Thailand beat Australia comfortably with straight sets
25-13, 25-11, 25-12. With the victory and the withdrawal of
Tajikstan, Thailand now tops Group A as there are only two teams in
the pool.
Vietnam made a perfect take-off by easily winning over Sri Lanka
25-11, 25-9, 25-10 in Group B.
In Group C, Chinese Taipei crushed New Zealand in straight sets
25-19, 25-6, 25-13, while Kazakhstan won 25-10, 25-16, 25-12 over
the Iranian team, which put on its debut in an international
volleyball tournament after a 40-year absence.
Japan beat Uzbekistan comfortably by 25-8, 25-10, 25-11 in Group
D.
The more thrilling encounter between Indonesia and South Korea
in Group D saw the latter power past 25-17, 25-19, 25-11.
On Thursday, Japan takes on South Korea, Uzbekistan meets
Indonesia, Kazakhstan plays New Zealand, Vietnam goes up against
China, and Iran faces Chinese Taipei.
After the completion of the group round-robin preliminaries on
Friday, the top two teams in each group will advance to
classification matches for the quarter-finals which will be played
following the round robin format. The remaining teams will compete
in the classification 9th-13th round.
(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2007)