Thailand might earn a final round ticket in FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix
With the second week of the 2012 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix over, the tournament is reaching the third and final week of its preliminary round with the coming weekend matches. The total of 16 teams will be playing in four pools over the weekend, which are Pool I, Pool J, Pool K and Pool L. The host nation for Pool I is Japan whereas Thailand will be staging the Pool J matches in Bangkok. Pool K matches will be played in Luohe, China and the Pool L teams will play in Taipei, Chinese Taipei.
Pool J is composed of an interesting mix of teams with the top ranked squad of the tournament, US, leading the pool. The US side is also the defending champions of the tournament. The host team of Thailand finds itself in the second place in the pool, while it is at the fourth spot in the tournament rankings. The Serbians, who are also the European champions, are at the third place in the pool but have the 10th position in the tournament ranking while the Argentineans are at the bottom of the rung in Pool J.
As China is the host team of the final round, it has automatically qualified for it. However, the other close contestant is the US squad which would probably not have a hard time in securing itself a final round ticket.
Other than that, the Thai squad also stand a good chance of making it into the next phase of the championship if they put on a good performance in the coming weekend. Thailand, with 14 points is currently four points behind the third ranking team in the tournament, Turkey. The Thai have been able to earn their place by bagging five wins at the cost of one loss. The two teams that Thailand needs to watch out for are US, which is going on a winning streak in the tournament as well as Serbia.
Out of all the matches played against the US and Serbia, Thailand has been able to win only one so far in its program history. However, in order to getting a winning chance in the tournament, it is necessary that Thailand scores at least one point against both the teams in the weekend matches.
Argentina should be an easy task for the Thai squad as they have been able to get no points in the tournament as Argentina still has to secure a win.
Fortunately for Thailand, they will have the home ground advantage in the matches to come and will look to capitalize on the motivation generated by the cheers of the home crowd. Other than that, Thailand is entering the third week of the tournament with a win over Japan that was secured on June 17 by 3-2. The score board showed the following final set scores: 25-15, 16-25, 22-25, 25-19 and 18-16.
The coach of the Thai squad, Radchatagriengkai Kiattipong, expressed himself at the win in the following manner, “First I’d like to congratulate my players today on their win. I didn’t think that we would win today. It was a very hard game for them, as Japan played every point very well. These conditions made my team make too many errors. But they came back in fourth and the fifth unified, and they play 100 percent to win. Congratulations to all of them. We’ll try our best next week as well.”
In the event that Thailand is able to step up its game, it might find itself in the final round of the tournament by the end of this weekend.
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