Tokyo, Japan, June 7, 2012 European Champions Serbia took a major step towards the London Olympic Games winning over Puerto Rico and remain unbeaten at the fifth day of action of the FIVB World Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Thursday. Iran nailed Puerto Rico in 3 sets and past Australia as favorite to claim the Asian qualifying ticket. Australia lost to Japan in 3 straight sets in the highlighted match of the evening.

The event doubles as Asian Continental Olympic Qualifier, the top one team at the end of the competition plus the best Asian team even not among the medalists will get spots for the Summer Games in London later this summer.  

Iran vs Venezuela

Iran beat Venezuela in 3 straight sets (25-16, 25-16, 25-20). Venezuela came out flat and never got going in the contest. Iran's quick attack proved to be a significant obstacle for Venezuela. Iran served well and displayed excellent passing in the win. Venezuela had difficulties in serve and service reception in the loss. The victory raised Iran's record to 4-1, while Venezuela dropped to 1-4 with the loss. Amir Ghafour and Farhad Ghaemi sparked Iran with 11 points each. Kervin Pinerua scored a match-high 12 points in the loss for Venezuela.

Venezuela coach - Roberto Garcia:

"There was a big difference in quality and performance between the teams. We lost our focus and lacked team play."

Serbia vs Puerto Rico

Serbia notched a straight 3 sets victory over Puerto Rico (25-19, 25-17, 25-18) to remain unbeaten on the fifth day of action. Serbia overpowered the Puerto Rican side with superior skills in blocking, serving and passing. The Serbs have lost only one set in the competition, while Puerto Rico has won only one set. The European champions moved to 5-0 with the triumph, while Puerto Rico remained winless at 0-5 with the defeat. Sasa Starovic paced Serbia with 10 points. Bojan Janic tallied nine points. Ezequiel Cruz had a match-high 14 in the loss for Puerto Rico. Nikola Kovacevic best spiker so far succes rate 56.

Serbia captain - Bojan Janic: "We are happy about the victory. It is not easy being favored and coming into a game and having to win." We gave some players rest and hope to be ready for tomorrow. We are one step closer to the Olympic Games."

Korea vs China

Korea outlasted China in a thrilling five sets (25-21, 22-25, 25-20, 14-25, 15-13) The match featured the changing of momentum, as the sides traded sets until Korea finally prevailed. The result saw both sides emerge with 2-3 records heading into the final two days of the competition at Saturday and Sunday.Park Chul-Woo racked up a match-high 27 points. Kim Hak-Min had 19 points in the win.Chen Ping led China with 23 points. Zhang Chen added 21 points.

Korea coach - Park Ki-Won

"All our serves were great. Park Chul-Woo and Kim Yo-Han played really well. I think this is why we beat China."

Japan vs Australia

Japan posted a straight sets (25-22, 25-23, 25-12) victory over Australia front of a fanatic crowd of fans. Australia had trouble with Japan's quick attack and service reception. They made several unforced errors during the match and seemed rattled by the raucous sellout crowd. Japan seized the momentum in the first set and retained it throughout the match. They were proficient on both offense and defense in the impressive triumph. Japan served especially well on the way to the win. The result left both sides with records of 3-2.Tatsuya Fukuzawa and Kota Yamamura powered a relentless Japan attack with 15 points each. Igor Yudin led Australia with 14 points. Edgar Thomas had 12 in the loss.

Japan coach - Tatsuya Ueta:

"I want to thank the players. They were all focused tonight. We will do our best in our last two games. We will have to be psyched up and united. We thought Australia's serves were softer than China's, so we tried to take advantage of this."

Tomorrow Friday is a rest day

In total four tickets remaining for the Olympic tournament in London. Two from the qualification tournament in Japan and parallel this weekend from June 8 to 10, one ticket in Sofia, Bulgaria, and one from Berlin, Germany, respectively. In Sofia, Bulgaria, France, Egypt and Pakistan will battle. In Berlin, Czech Republic, Cuba and India is playing for one single ticket.

Teams already qualified to London are host Great Britain, Russia, Poland, Italy, Brazil, Tunisia, USA, Argentina.

LIVE SCOREBOX
DAY 5   |   JUNE 7, 2012

 

No Phase Date Local Time GMT Time Teams Live Score Result City Description Press Conf. Stats Photos 17 A 07/06 11:10 02:10 IRI-VEN 3-0 Tokyo, Japan View View View View 18 A 07/06 13:40 04:40 SRB-PUR 3-0 Tokyo, Japan View View View View 19 A 07/06 16:10 07:10 KOR-CHN 3-2 Tokyo, Japan View View View View 20 A 07/06 19:15 10:15 JPN-AUS 3-0 Tokyo, Japan View View View View Standing Rk Code Team Points Matches Results Details Sets Points Played Won Lost 3-0 3-1 3-2 2-3 1-3 0-3 Won Lost Ratio Won Lost Ratio 1 SRB Serbia 15 5 5   4 1         15 1 15.000 392 298 1.315 2 IRI Iran 11 5 4 1 2 1 1   1   13 6 2.167 449 385 1.166 3 AUS Australia 9 5 3 2 2 1       2 9 7 1.286 354 341 1.038 4 JPN Japan 8 5 3 2 2   1   1 1 10 8 1.250 405 401 1.010 5 CHN China 8 5 2 3 1 1   2   1 10 10 1.000 433 434 0.998 6 KOR Korea 6 5 2 3 1   1 1 1 1 9 11 0.818 410 441 0.930 7 VEN Venezuela 3 5 1 4 1         4 3 12 0.250 313 370 0.846 8 PUR Puerto Rico   5   5         1 4 1 15 0.067 312 398 0.784

BEST SCORERS

Rank	Shirt	Name	Team	Spike	Block	Serve	Total
1	14	Fukuzawa Tatsuya	JPN	63	8	9	80
	19	Edgar Thomas	AUS	60	14	6	80
3	4	Zhang Chen	CHN	67	9	1	77
4	10	Pinerua Kervin	VEN	56	7	3	66
	10	Chen Ping	CHN	52	8	6	66
6	9	White Adam	AUS	59	2	4	65
7	7	Zarini Hamzeh	IRI	54	8	1	63
8	10	Ghafour Amir	IRI	54	2	6	62
9	6	Mousavi Eraghi Seyed Mohammad	IRI	37	19	3	59
	11	Park Chul-Woo	KOR	53	6		59
11	8	Kim Hak-Min	KOR	51	6	1	58
12	5	Ghaemi Farhad	IRI	38	4	13	55
	6	Yudin Igor	AUS	48	6	1	55
	10	Nikic Milos	SRB	46	7	2	55
15	13	Choi Hong-Suk	KOR	40	5	5	50
16	1	Kovacevic Nikola	SRB	42	4	3	49
	18	Shin Yung-Suk	KOR	39	8	2	49
18	9	Nadi Alireza	IRI	34	9	3	46
19	1	Bian Hongmin	CHN	34	9	1	44
	3	Gonzalez Fernando	VEN	35	8	1	44
	15	Starovic Sasa	SRB	37	5	2	44
22	13	Shimizu Kunihiro	JPN	41	2		43
23	3	Figueroa Juan	PUR	36	2	2	40
24	15	Cruz Lozada Ezequiel	PUR	37	2		39
25	18	Podrascanin Marko	SRB	26	9	3	38
26	1	Zingel Aidan	AUS	21	13	1	35
	15	Arias Luis	VEN	31	2	2	35
28	5	Muñiz Roberto	PUR	27	4	3	34
	11	Matsumoto Yoshihiko	JPN	27	6	1	34
30	1	Rivera Jose	PUR	30	1	2	33
	6	Liang Chunlong	CHN	18	15		33
32	7	Escalante Enrique	PUR	23	6	3	32
	12	Yamamura Kota	JPN	19	10	3	32
34	18	Yoneyama Yuta	JPN	29	2		31
35	7	Zhong Weijun	CHN	21	7	2	30
36	10	Maldonado Ulises	PUR	28			28
37	7	Yamamoto Takahiro	JPN	23	1	1	25
	16	Ishijima Yusuke	JPN	24	1		25
39	7	Lee Sun-Kyu	KOR	17	6	1	24
	14	Atanasijevic Aleksandar	SRB	20	2	2	24
41	3	Yuan Zhi	CHN	23			23
	14	Kim Yo-Han	KOR	21	1	1	23
43	5	Passier Travis	AUS	10	11	1	22
44	5	Rodriguez Emerson	VEN	16	4	1	21
	7	Stankovic Dragan	SRB	18	2	1	21
	12	Rasic Milan	SRB	14	6	1	21
47	17	Escobar Daniel	VEN	14	6		20
48	12	Shen Qiong	CHN	14	4	1	19
49	12	Fayazid. Pourya	IRI	14	2		16
	17	Ghara Reza	IRI	14	1	1	16
51	1	Jeon Kwang-In	KOR	9	4	2	15
	14	Morales Fernando	PUR	7	6	2	15
53	9	Tomimatsu Takaaki	JPN	7	4		11
54	4	Janic Bojan	SRB	9	1		10
	6	Paez Carlos	VEN	4	3	3	10
56	4	Marouflakrani Mir Saeid	IRI	7	1	1	9
	10	Yun Bong-Woo	KOR	8		1	9
58	2	Han Sun-Soo	KOR	2	2	3	7
	5	Petkovic Vlado	SRB	2	5		7
	11	Yu Dawei	CHN	5	1	1	7
	15	Li Runming	CHN		6	1	7
62	2	Kovacevic Uros	SRB	5		1	6
	11	Contreras Jhoser	VEN	5	1		6
	19	Aquino Edwin Leonardo	PUR	2	3	1	6
65	2	Yustiz Deivis	VEN	1	2	2	5
66	5	Usami Daisuke	JPN	1	2		3
	7	Peacock Harrison	AUS	1		2	3
	13	Mahdavi Mehdi	IRI		2	1	3
69	3	Kwon Young-Min	KOR	1	1		2
	3	Roberts Nathan	AUS	2			2
	8	Salerno Hector	VEN	2			2
	8	Grant Andrew	AUS	2			2
	18	Williams Lincoln Alexander	AUS	2			2
74	4	Kondoh Shigeru	JPN	1			1
	9	Jiao Shuai	CHN		1		1
	11	Mitic Mihajlo	SRB			1	1
	14	Mobasheri Demneh Alireza	IRI	1			1
	19	Koshiya Akira	JPN	1			1
Total Tournament				1'742	327	128	2'197