Thailand Coach Kiattipong Radchatagriengkai

I want to congratulate the Japan team. I want to thank all the staff working for this tournament and the Thai fans.

Today, we did our best, but we couldn't win and it was disappointing. Japan played well, especially blocking and attacking. Japan prepared for this game and they knew all about the Thai team, and I felt that they really wanted to beat us. I hope Japan can do well in their last two games.

(Why couldn't Thailand keep their lead?)

The reason is the setter and players in our attack could not coordinate themselves at all, and the quality of our offense was very poor. When we were not doing well, Japan did very well. That's why we fell behind. The players in the back court made many mistakes and they became stressed out because of that, and in the final set they couldn't get over this and felt a lot of pressure, which the Japanese exploited.

(Re. Next games)

We were happy to win the Asian title, but it wasn't expected. At the Asian Championship all our attacks and moves went well. For the future, we will do our best and we would like to play in international tournaments. Our final goal is to play in the Olympics in London.

Thailand Captain Wilavan Apinyapong

Today was hard. It wasn't easy to break the combination of the Japanese players and especially digging out the serves was tough. I was happy with our last two matches, but today we played poorly. We have to study how the Japanese play in order to be able to win next time.

(Re. Last game vs. Japan)

The Japanese team have studied how we play very well and they've learned how to overcome us.

(Re. Yamaguchi)

Her service was fast and we weren't able to deal with it.

Japan Coach Masayoshi Manabe

Today we concentrated and this is why we could win.

(Re. You said Yamaguchi is a stable player for the team; how about Ishida?)

Ishida is a moodmaker for our team. I changed Takeshita with Ishida and she made the atmosphere of our team really good.

(Re. Dominican Republic game)

I haven't studied them yet, but we'll do our best and we will watch a video of their game tonight and prepare for the match.

(Re. Absence of Kurihara)

She injured her knee. I don't know much about what happened to her knee. I will decide what to do after checking.

(In the second set you put Tominaga into the game; what do you think about her?)

Tominaga practiced very hard. She has a good serve and is very important as a pinch-server.

(Re. Kimura)

She received well, so I want her to play like today in the other two games.

(How do you evaluate the three days so far?)

I don't know what percentage I should give the team. Like today, if we have good reception, we can play a fast game, but we need to raise the individual level of the players.

(Who is the star of today's game?)

Today's star is Ishida and the lineup in the last set.

Japan No. 12 Saori Kimura

In Asian Championship when Japan played Thailand we lost, so I didn't want to lose even one set today. So I'm happy with the win today.

(Re. Serve reception with Sano – was it an additional burden to receive?)

That's what we always practice so there's no problem.

(How do you evaluate today's game?)

As a team, we made easy mistakes in the first two sets, so the start was not good, but in the end we won, so it could be good for our next game.

I don't know if I was good or bad today, but I just didn't want to lose a set.

Japan No. 9 Mizuho Ishida

I'm happy to win today because we lost at the Asian Championship.

(You did well in spiking and receiving in second set; how did you prepare for that?)

Captain Takeshita gave me advice and helped me.

(How about today's game?)

I don't know how I played, but I was helped a lot by my teammates. Although I couldn't play like I wanted to, the team played as a unit.