TEHRAN – Iran defeated Iraq in straight sets (25-11, 25-17, 25-15) at the 2022 World Sitting Volleyball Men’s World Championship on Friday.

Team Melli will play Kazakhstan on Saturday.

Headed by their big star Morteza Mehrzad, at 2.46m the second tallest man on earth and the MVP of the most recent Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, Iran field an experienced side that aim for nothing short than their eighth world championship title – more than all other world champions combined in the previous twelve editions of the World ParaVolley flagship event.

The 16 participating teams are divided into four pools for the preliminary phase of the competition and both Iran (up against Kazakhstan, Croatia and Iraq) and Bosnia & Herzegovina (facing USA, Japan and Serbia) are expected to go through to the knockout phase, starting with the Round of 16, without much difficulty.

The top two teams of each pool advance to the Round of 16 (though all continue to contest all ranking positions).

The men’s competition at Sarajevo 2022 runs in parallel with the women’s World Championship.