The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : Kerala men and women register wins

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007
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Sport

Sport - Volleyball

Kerala men and women register wins

Special Correspondent

NIRMAL (AP): Kerala men and women maintained a clean slate right until the penultimate day of the South Zone senior volleyball championships at the NTR Stadium here on Saturday.

In the day's fixtures, the men beat Andhra Pradesh 25-23, 25-21, 25-15, while the women also defeated AP 25-13, 25-13, 25-21.

The sheer variety in its attack made Kerala men a side hard to toss. Where it could beat the block, it smashed, while tipping the ball over, when it couldn't. Its game was bolstered by clever boosting, that kept the host's blockers guessing.

Especially noteworthy were the diagonal smashes unleashed by Ragesh K.G. On one occasion, he spiked the ball, which had sailed along the net, at an angle so acute, that it travelled almost parallel to the mesh, before bouncing off the rival turf, untouched. In the process, the punch he packed had the style that seems to be prerogative of the southpaw. Across the net, the home side raised its game several notches, in the first set particularly, the 'wall' blunting much of Kerala's early firepower.

It then appeared that AP had done its homework well as it beat the rival block to snatch an early lead. Halting some searing smashes, AP's block showed resilience too. Its weakness lay in sloppy serving that gifted the opponent several points and perhaps the initiative too.

Puducherry men proved they were no push-overs, running their neighbours Tamil Nadu close, the former reducing their margin of defeat with each passing game.

The results: Men: Tamil Nadu bt Puducherry 25-12, 25-20, 25-22, Kerala bt AP 25-23, 25-21, 25-15. Women: Kerala bt AP 25-13, 25-13, 25-21, Tamil Nadu bt Puducherry 25-10, 25-7, 25-13. Friday's result: Kerala bt Tamil Nadu 25-19, 20-25, 25-19, 25-22.