The South Korean women’s volleyball team, which has gone from being a ‘world top four’ to an ‘Asian top four’ team, earned a frustrating victory over an inferior India team.
Led by head coach Cesar Hernández González, the Korean team defeated India 3-0 (25-21 25-18 25-20) in the 5th-8th place match at the 2023 Asian Volleyball Championship in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand on Friday.
The Korean team will play Kazakhstan for the fifth place match on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET.
Kazakhstan won their match against Australia 3-2 (25-16 21-25 19-25 25-15 15-12) at the same time as the Korea-India match.
South Korea, ranked 33rd in the world, struggled against 66th-ranked India.
The result was a shutout victory, but it was a narrow one, as each set was close.
In the first set, the Koreans had to fight back from a late set deficit against a skilled Indian setter, and in the second set, they fell behind early before rallying midway through.
The Korean women’s volleyball team, which was trying to redeem itself at the tournament, lost its first match of the tournament against Vietnam on Sept. 30 and then lost its quarterfinal match against Thailand 0-3 on Sept. 3, failing to advance to the final four.
It was the first time the Korean women’s volleyball team has been eliminated in the quarterfinals of the tournament since it began competing in 1975. 토토