The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : TN women march into final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 06, 2007
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Sport

Sport - Volleyball

TN women march into final

Principal Correspondent

VATAKARA: With a smart formation that took care of Himachal Pradesh's height advantage comfortably, Tamil Nadu entered the women's final of the ninth National youth volleyball championship with a straight-sets victory at the Narayana Nagar courts here on Saturday evening.

A lot of thinking had gone into Tamil Nadu's strategy, both on and off the court. A couple of days ago, the team had cleverly dropped a league game, against Chattisgarh, and finished second in its group just to avoid a semifinal meeting with defending champion Kerala, the championship host.

Smart combination

This evening, Tamil Nadu — with the majority of the girls coming from Chennai's Sivanthi Club and the GKM Foundation — blunted the tall Himachal women by using tall blocker Raghavardhini and attacker Poovizhi in one row and Jeya Bharathi and Monisha Dass in another.

The combination clicked as captain Raghavardhini and Jeya kept the Himachal attackers Reena Devi and Lalita Kumari on a tight leash while Poovizhi, a strong attacker despite a stocky frame, and Monisha kept up the tempo with a steady stream of smashes converting setter Indrani's smart lifts.

Himachal's woes

In desperation, Himachal put up a three-woman block but Tamil Nadu shrewdly avoided it by placing naughty drops on the side of the wall and with intelligent cross-court smashes. In a way, Himachal's height seemed to be a handicap for the young women were unable to dig freely, they were not flexible and their first pass was often shaky. Compounding the team's backcourt worry was libero Keki Dutta who was a big flop during her brief appearance in the third set.

Tamil Nadu, a former two-time runner-up, should have won the 53-minute affair much faster but it lost focus early in the second set and midway through the third, probably due to the weak opposition and gloomy skies.

The results:

Men's semifinals: Karnataka bt Rajasthan 25-20, 25-17, 19-25, 25-16.

Women's semifinals: Tamil Nadu bt Himachal Pradesh 25-20, 25-13, 25-10; Kerala bt Karnataka 25-21, 25-14, 25-12.

Friday's matches: Women's quarterfinals: Himachal Pradesh bt Andhra Pradesh 26-24, 25-20, 25-20. Men's quarterfinals: Kerala bt Uttar Pradesh 25-22, 21-25, 25-22, 25-23.