The fifth week of the VNL2021 men's tournament has ended, and all 120 qualifying round matches have been completed. The Japanese men's team won a comfortable victory over Bulgaria with Nishida returning to the starting lineup, but suffered consecutive losses to Slovenia and the United States, showing the difference in strength between them. They finished the tournament in 11th place with 7 wins and 8 losses.
Japan's match in Week 5
⑬ vs Bulgaria 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-14)
Nishida's spikes
Starting lineup for the first set (serving order)
Japan
OH14 Ishikawa, MB6 Yamauchi, OP11 Nishida, OH21 Takahashi Ai, MB2 Onodera, S12 Sekita, L20 Yamamoto
Bulgaria
MB2 Chaldanov, S9 Seganov, OH4 Atanasov, MB3 Kolev, OP25 Parapunov, OH14 Asparukhov, L16 Ivanov
Nishida, who was on the bench in the fourth week, finally made his first start in this tournament. How long he had been waiting for this day. However, Nishida himself must have been waiting for this day to come more than us fans. As if he was letting out an explosion of joy, Nishida was superb on this day!
Japan started the first set with Nishida's attacks and Takahashi Ai's service aces to lead the score to 8-5, and began to pull away from the young Bulgaria. Sekita was also aware of this, as he was pitching more balls to Nishida than usual. And Nishida was the one who lived up to the team's expectations. He scored one after another, occasionally mixing in soft shots. The opponent also attacked with ace Asparuhov as the center, but Japan's momentum was unstoppable, and they extended their lead to 16-11 and 5 points. However, Bulgaria stepped up their game in the final stages. After shutting out Nishida's spike, they took a service ace from Takahashi Ai and narrowed the gap to 23-22. However, Japan then made sure to get a side out, and finally won the first set with a quick from Onodera.
Bulgaria's ace Asparuhov
In the second set, the 18-year-old substitute from Bulgaria, Kalyagin, scored an attack and the score was down 8-7, but Nishida's spikes and Ishikawa's serves helped Japan pull away from their opponents and take the lead 16-12. Ishikawa and Nishida are two strong players! They both have strong hits, of course, but they are also amazing at calmly judging the situation from a variety of options, such as using rebounds and feints, to score and take rallies to their advantage. Ishikawa's abilities in particular are outstanding. Before you know it, Japan has accumulated points and won the second set 25-18.
The third set was amazing. I was thrilled by Ai Takahashi's "nugapet (a fake toss that looks like a back attack on two)" at 4-3, followed by Ishikawa's no-block spike. Nishida's block also forced the opposing ace Asparuhov to go to the bench, and the game was now completely in Japan's favor. Towards the end, it was such a one-sided game that I don't remember much about it (lol). In the end, the opponent's serve hit the net and the game was set. Japan took the third set with a huge lead of 25-14 and defeated Bulgaria in straight sets.
Nishida scored 23 points, the most for both teams, and was in top form with a 68.9% success rate in attacks. Even though Bulgaria was a weak opponent with a young team, Nishida is still only 21 years old (lol). He is a fearsome player indeed. Even though he is only 186cm tall, his playing style doesn't make him seem small! Anyway, it was good to see him looking healthy throughout the whole game! And by the way, the average age of the starting line-up, consisting of Ishikawa, Nishida, and Takahashi, is 21.6 years old, which is the youngest in history, isn't it?!
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