Iran Comes 7th at Asian Women’s U-17 Volleyball Championship
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Iran finished in seventh place at the 12th Asian Women’s U-17 Volleyball Championship after powering past the fighting rival India in thrilling four-setter 25-23 20-25 25-16 25-15 at the Nakhon Pathom Municipality Gymnasium on Sunday.
Zahra Rezaei led Iran with 18 points including 11 attacks from 42 attempts, while Elakiya M.Muthu handed India 18 points including 16 kills from 47 attempts.
It was a strong comeback for Iran, which finished a disappointing 9th position at the previous episode in Chongqing, China two yeas ago. To return with an improved performance and the 7th position was satisfactory.
“India is a strong team with good players. We won the first set, but they recovered well to beat us in the second set. However, we started to learn mistakes from the previous set and came up with a better form to win the remaining sets," Iran coach Mitra Shabanian commented after the match.
"I think our team’s performance in this championship is not that bad. More importantly, this is the first time that we will return from the championship with the best result ever,” she added.
Iran sent its team to the Asian youth girls championship for the first time in 2008 in the Philippines, where it returned disappointed with the 11th position. Their best results in the biennial competition came in 2010 and 2017 in Malaysia and China, where they finished 9th overall.
