The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : TN men go down fighting

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 02, 2007
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Sport - Volleyball

TN men go down fighting

S. Sabanayakan

RAIPUR: Tamil Nadu men, displaying commendable team spirit, put up a stiff fight before going down to Kerala 1-3 in the quarterfinals of the 55th senior National volleyball championship here on Monday.

If the men's team elimination was bad news, the women brought some cheer by defeating Andhra Pradesh 3-0 and marching into the semifinals.

The defending men and women's champion Railways chugged along nicely into the semifinals. The men needed just 48 minutes to outplay Punjab and the women made short work of Delhi.

In other quarterfinal matches, Uttaranchal subdued Karnataka in the men's section, while West Bengal downed Andhra Pradesh in the women's event.

Superior side

In a 95-minute battle, Kerala looked superior of the two, despite missing captain Azeez Thayambath (fever) and T.P. Sayooj (finger injury). However, two India players, Tom Joseph and R. Rajeev, rose to the occasion.

Joseph was in a tremendous form in the first two sets. He spiked thunderbolts from second and fourth zones with great success and efforts to block him were in vain.

It was no wonder that Kerala won the first two sets rather closely, thanks to some fine work in the backcourt by J. Nadarajan.

Tamil Nadu, which relied on its teamwork and fighting spirit to counter Kerala, raced to a 21-14 lead before winning the third. Tamil Nadu had finally found a way to block Joseph in the third and fourth sets but conceded negative points to help Kerala stay in picture. In the fourth, Kerala led 15-10 but Tamil Nadu fought back to make it 20-20 before losing.

The semifinal line-up:

Men: Railways v Haryana/Services; Uttaranchal v Kerala.

Women: Railways v Tamil Nadu; West Bengal v Kerala.

The results (quarterfinals):

Men: Railways bt Punjab 25-17, 25-15, 25-16; Uttaranchal bt Karnataka 25-16, 30-28, 25-22; Kerala bt TN 25-23, 25-23, 25-27, 25-23.

Women: Railways bt Delhi 25-10, 25-13, 25-12; TN bt Chandigarh 27-25, 25-8, 25-20; West Bengal bt AP 26-24, 25-16, 25-15; Kerala bt Maharashtra 25-17, 25-16, 25-20

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