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Chinese spike India

C N R Vijaykumar in Bangkok

India were defeated but not disgraced when they lost their volleyball opener in the Asian Games to formidable China in straight sets in a Group B encounter in Bangkok today.

The team, despite lacking match practice, gave the Chinese a harrowing time before losing 15-9, 15-7, 15-11.

Some brilliant smashes by Amir Singh and Surjit Singh, with able support from seasoned internationals Ravikanth Reddy, M S Rajesh, Ratanlal Ramadan and Joby Joseph, frustrated China, which had thought the match would be a cakewalk.

The Indian spikers are back in the Asian Games after a gap of 12 years. They had last appeared in Seoul in 1986 where they won the bronze medal.

The spirited fight by the Indians drew cheers from the sparse crowd in the stadium. The Chinese had a pack of cheer boys who rooted for them throughout. But except for Volleyball Federation of India president B Sivanthi Adityan and other officials, including K Murugan, there were no Indian athletes around to support the team.

For China, the most outstanding performance came from World Championship players Gang Zhu, Lu Weizhong, and Weizhong Lu.

Except in patches, India could not really overtake the Chinese. In the first set they managed to keep the scores level till 6-6. But they ultimately lost the set with a six-point difference, though they saved three set points.

The second set saw the Indians race to a 3-0 lead with fine blocking by Roy Joseph and Rajesh. But they lacked the tenacity of the Chinese and their serves were feeble and reflexes slow. The Chinese not only levelled the score at four all, but went on to score continuous points to take the set at 15-7.

The third set saw the Indians fight every inch of the way till the score read 8-8. But thereafter they could not sustain the fight and China took a convincing 14-11 lead. But the Indians still saved three match points before the favourites Chinese did the trick.

India take on another powerful team, defending champions Japan, tomorrow. Japan has won seven of the 10 volleyball titles so far in the Asian Games.

Indian coach G E Sreedharan admitted that the team lacked service and tactical play against the superior Chinese. But he was sure it would perform better against Japan.

UNI