Iran played a tough match against India before powering past the fighting rivals in thrilling four-setter 25-23 20-25 25-16 25-15 to take the 7th place at the 12th Asian Women’s U17 Volleyball Championship 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 years ago. To return with an improved performance and the 7th position was very satisfactory.

“India are 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. 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,” Iran coach Mitra Shabanian commented after the match.

Iran sent their team to the Asian youth girls championship for the first time in 2008 in the Philippines, where they 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.

(Source:Asianvolleyball.net)