Asian Games 2014: India beat Qatar, finish 5th in volleyball

The match swung from one end to another before India managed to have the last laugh.

India’s Manidurai Naveen Raja Jacob spikes against Japan’s Kunihiro Shimizuin in Incheon. India won against Qatar to finish at 5th place in the Asian Games on Friday. (Source: PTI)

India prevailed over Qatar 3-2 in a hard-fought contest to finish fifth in the men’s volleyball competition at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon on Friday.

In men’s 5th-6th place classification match at the Songnim Gymnasium, the Indians rallied to beat the Qataris 25-21 20-25 25-22 20-25 15-10 in a keenly contested match, which lasted an hour and 47 minutes.

The match swung from one end to another before India managed to have the last laugh. India finished with a total of 105 points as against 103 scored by their opponents.

The Indians started brilliantly and pocketed the first set 25-21 in 22 minutes, but Qatar got their act together soon to drew parity by winning the next one 25-20 to level the scores 1-1.

The Indians fought back to restore their lead by winning the third set 25-22 but failed to capitalise on the advantage.

They once again squandered the lead to let Qatar snatch the fourth game 25-20 and take the match to the decider.

In the deciding set, the Indians held on to their nerves to make it 15-10.

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Gurinder Singh was the top-scorer with 20 points while Govindarajan Ramakrishnan Vaishnav, Naveen Raja Jacob Manidurai and Prabagaran scored 18 points each to help India post a victory on the penultimate day of the competition.

For Qatar, Ribeiro Renan was the highest scorer with 21 points to his credit.