The Men's U21 Volleyball World Championship is being held in Jiangmen, China. The ranking matches were held on Sunday, August 31st, and Japan defeated South Korea 3-1 (25-18, 19-25, 25-22, 25-21) to finish the tournament in 11th place.
This year's U21 Japan Men's National Team includes outside hitter (OH) Takuma Kawano (Waseda University), who is also registered with the Japan Senior National Team, and advanced through Qualifying Pool C with a strong record of 4 wins, 1 loss and 2nd place.
However, in the first round of the following final tournament, they lost 2-3 to China due to unfair judging, and went on to play in the deciding matches for rankings 9th to 16th.
In the ranking matches, they first defeated Argentina 3-2, but then lost 1-3 to Bulgaria, advancing to the 11th-12th place deciding match where they faced South Korea.
The South Korean national team was the team that Japan lost to in the semi-finals of last year's U20 Asian Championship.
In the first set, Japan took the lead 25-18, helped by the decisive attacks of Opposite (OP) Yamamoto and some mistakes from South Korea, but in the second set, Japan struggled with the attacks of South Korea's OP Yoon, losing the set to South Korea 19-25.
However, in the third set, Japan won the close match 25-22 thanks to the efforts of OH Ono and OH Shirano, who started the set, and in the following fourth set, Japan also won 25-21 thanks to highly decisive attacks led by OH Shirano and OH Kawano.
The result was a 3-1 victory over South Korea, giving Japan revenge at the Asian Championships.
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https://en.volleyballworld.com/volleyball/competitions/men-u21-world-championship/schedule/23574/#teamstats
This tournament has left us with very disappointing memories, especially the match against China.
However, there are many interesting players, such as Kawano and Takematsu, who are already on the senior national team list, Ono, who is a small but all-rounder, and Nakamura, who has shown promise with his performance less than a year since becoming a full-fledged setter, and we hope that at least one of them will make an impact on the senior national team.
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Photo: Volleyball World
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