Press release

Masayoshi Manabe, coach of Japan: I thought today's game would be tough. Our serves and blocking went well, so it was good. I was surprised by how well we blocked tonight. We put Kanako Hirai in earlier than we planned because Nana Iwasaka did not do as well as we expected.

Kiattipong Radchatagriengkai, coach of Thailand: Japan played very good. It was a hard game for us. We prepared hard. We just did not do well on offense and defense. The key point was our counterattack. We could not block well on some rally points. We will try to do our best in the next game.

Yukiko Ebata, Japan player: I'm glad to win today. We didn't think it would an easy victory.

Yoshie Takeshita, Japan player: We won and that's the bottom line. Tomorrow we will win again.

Nana Iwasaka, Japan player: We were happy to be able to win. I made some mistakes and my attitude is to focus on improving on them tomorrow.

Nootsara Tomkom, Thailand player: Today Japan played very good. We had problems with serving and receiving. It was a hard game for us.

Onuma Sittirak,Thailand player: The Japanese team did their homework and had a good plan for this game. It was hard for us on offense to get points tonight.