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Tuesday, Jan 01, 2008
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Sport - Volleyball

Tamil Nadu stuns Kerala

Kirti Patil

Railways women to meet Kerala in final

— Photo: Sandeep Saxena

TELLING SMASH: Railways’ Sapna Joshi tries to breach the Tamil Nadu defence in the National volleyball championship at Jaipur on Monday.

JAIPUR: A disciplined Tamil Nadu struck form at the right moment with captain Shelton Moses and fellow blocker Kalaivanan nullifying Kerala’s key spiker Tom Joseph’s effect comprehensively as it defeated Kerala 25-22, 25-22, 25-23 to cruise into the men’s final in the 56th National volleyball championship here on Monday.

Despite being on a high after stopping Railways in its tracks, Kerala lost sight of its target too early in the semifinal.

In the final, Tamil Nadu will take on Haryana, which beat Services in the second semifinal here this evening 22-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-12.

The six-time champion Tamil Nadu started the championship sedately losing its first two league matches against Kerala and Services. With its pride at stake, Tamil Nadu beat Haryana in the last league match to stay afloat.

On Monday, Tamil Nadu showed that it was the team to beat. It has been a long wait for Tamil Nadu, which has not won the National title since 1994. What happens on the morrow should not take away the character Tamil Nadu exhibited against Kerala.

Sathish Kumar and Ukkrapandian started the assault early on before Moses and Kalaivanan got into the act. Tom Joseph and Shamji K. Thomas found it difficult to get past the blockers. Sivabalan and Sathish executed excellent smashes as Tamil Nadu raced ahead nicely.

Both E.K. Kishore Kumar and Vibin M. George were stranded in their tracks as Tamil Nadu fired neat smashes, which were virtually non-retrievable. Before Kerala could realize what hit them, Tamil Nadu earned the set point and duly converted to go one-up.

At the changeover, Kerala coach T.K. Raghavan gave a pep talk that was suddenly reflected in the way the last year’s runners-up played. With E.K. Kishore Kumar and Jaya Lal scoring opportunistic points, Kerala took a comfortable 18-10 lead that suggested a long-drawn contest.

Sridharan’s tricks

But the Chief National coach G.E. Sridharan, who is here with the Tamil Nadu team, had tricks up his sleeves. Bridging the eight-point lead was difficult, but Tamil Nadu rose to the occasion.

With Kukan picking up powerful smashes to lengthen the rallies, Kerala was frustrated by the disjointed effort and quite a few fouls at the net. At 20-16, Joseph had the chance to put Kerala ahead but his powerful smash was blocked decisively. Two points later Thomas sent a smash out as Tamil Nadu closed the gap to 20-19.

Then, the Sathish-Ukkrapandian combination executed a fine block to put Tamil Nadu on even terms. Sivabalan’s solo blocking effort gave Tamil Nadu yet another set point before it took a 2-0 lead.

There was hardly anything that Kerala could undo in the third set. Though Kerala managed to stay close, Tamil Nadu always kept the lead before Kalaivanan smashed to give them the match-point. After putting in so much, it was only fitting that Sathish completed the winning block to end the encounter in 67 minutes.

Railways meet Kerala in final Railways and Kerala, which together form the most of the national squad, will meet in the women’s final after scoring contrasting semifinal wins here.

The two have played in the final 17 times before and this will be seventh year in a row that the two will feature in the title clash. In the last six editions, Railways have won five times only losing in 2004 in Tamil Nadu.

Easy for Railways

In the first semifinal, Railways hardly broke any sweat in beating Tamil Nadu 25-10, 25-22, 25-23 in 53 minutes. K. T. Betsy, captain Sapna Joshi, Priyanka Bora and K. J. Shibi scored points at regular intervals to down Tamil Nadu.

Kerala, however, allowed Bengal to come back in the second set, before captain Aswani S. Kumar and Gisha Thomas spiked their way into the final.

The results (semifinals):

Men: Tamil Nadu bt Kerala 25-22, 25-22, 25-23. Haryana bt Services 22-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-12.

Quarterfinal: Services bt Karnataka 23-25, 22-25, 25-21, 25-18, 15-13.

Women: Railways bt Tamil Nadu 25-10, 25-17, 25-13. Kerala bt Bengal 25-16, 23-25, 25-14, 25-19.

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