Sri Lanka went down to Saudi Arabia three sets to one (25-22, 22-25, 19-25, 21-25) in the final match of preliminary round of the ongoing Asia Men’s Challenge Cup Volleyball tournament at the Sugathadasa stadium yesterday. Sri Lanka who were well up to yesterday heading the group with two wins failed to live up to expectations as they made many blunders on the court.
The game which began at 6.30 p.m. saw Saudis take the lead at the first technical break, 8-7 but the Lankan spikers fought well to take the lead of two points with attractive spiking. They kept on to the lead and went on to wrap up the set 25-22 to the cheers of large crowd present to witness the game.
The second set began with Lankan spikers were off to flying start and got a slender two pint lead and moved firmly up to 13 point mark. Visitors sensing the danger got their act together and fought gallantly to equalize at this point. But the Lankan lads once again went ahead to make it 19-14. At this stage Lankans made many faults and bad spiking gave Saudis the opportunity to equalize again. There onward it was the visitors who took control of the set and finished the set 25-22 making it two sets each.
With the second set victory visitors gained morale and came for the third set fully geared to fight out the set. As expected they were well prepared to challenge the locals and played well to continue the good start they got at the beginning and finished the set 25-19 to take a firm grip of the match with a 2-1 lead. This set too saw our spikers failing to live up to expectations and giving away many points.
Saudis making good use of their height to the maximum made no mistakes in the fourth set and got off to firm lead of 7-3. They continued from that point and moved smoothly to destroy Lankans hope winning the set to stretch the game to full length and won the set 52-21. Local spikers did some hard work at the last moment but were too late to make amends to the loss gained in the early sets.
As Sri Lanka failed to be on top of the group they will have to confront United Arab Emirates in the quarter final on Wednesday while Saudis take on Mongolia in the morning.
The other two quarter finals between Malaysia and Iraq and the final quarter between Bangladesh and Hong Kong are scheduled to be played on Wednesday evening at the same venue.
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