2021 Asian Volleyball Championship | India's hopes all but over after loss to Qatar; to face Japan in last group match
India suffered their second straight defeat after losing to Bahrain on Sunday. This time the loss came against Qatar, and once again India lost in straight sets 3-0. Now India play Japan in last Pool A match and would have to beat hosts 3-0 to harbour any hopes of making it to next round.
India faced their second successive defeat in as many games in the Asian Volleyball Championships, Chiba, on Monday. Playing against a higher-ranked Qatar, India lost 3-0 (22-25, 14-25, 20-25) all but ending their hopes of finishing the top eight of the competition. On Sunday, Team India had lost to Bahrain in straight sets as well which finished their chances of making it to the semis of the tournament.
India will now play world no.10 team and hosts Japan on Tuesday but after these two defeats, the Indian team has plummeted to 90 in the world rankings. But there were a few decent individual performances with spiker Charles Jerome Vinith scoring 19 points, while Chirag and Subham Chaudhary contributed five and four points respectively.
On the other hand for Qatar, Ibrahim Ibrahim top-scored with 12 points while Ribeiro Renan scored 8 points. India, if they want to make it to the Pool F playoff matches, will have to beat Japan in straight sets, and hope that other matches too end in straight sets 3-0.
In volleyball, the teams winning 3-0 or 3-1 get the full three points while teams winning 3-2 get two points and the losing team bags one point.