SERVING UP SOME ACES

Volleyball fans across the country are enjoying watching many of the sport’s rising stars from all over Asia showcasing their talents as the kingdom hosts the 19th Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship.

The prestigious biennial competition opened on Saturday and has been organised by the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC), in cooperation with the Bahrain Volleyball Association (BVA). Matches are taking place at Isa Sports City in Riffa until Saturday.

This year’s event marks the second time that the Asian men’s U19 championship is being held on the island. It previously also took place in Bahrain in 2014, when Iran went on to claim the gold medals after beating China in the final.

Heading into this year’s event, the Chinese are the defending champions after they beat Iran in the title match of the 2016 tournament, held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Bahrain were classified 15th then and the players this time round, coached by Bahraini tactician Yusuf Khalifa, are hopeful of producing a few upsets.

Both China and Iran will once again be vying for the crown this time around. They are among 24 nations that will be competing in the championship, which will be played in an all-new format for the first time, following a change made by the AVC.

The new AVC competition format will see teams being drawn into three or four pools up to the total amount of the participating teams. Each team as well as the host side will be assigned into a pool according to their previous ranking.

As the three or four best-ranked teams from the previous tournament will be drawn in the same Pool A, the next best three (or four teams) will contest Pool B. Pool C will comprise teams finishing next best three or four teams, with Pool D featuring teams which did not participate in the previous tournament.

If there are 16 teams or more, the Championship will be split to Division 1 and Division 2, to be held at the same time in the same Championship. Each Division will comprise teams to be drawn according to their rankings in the previous edition. However, at the end of the Championship, only two teams with the worst performances in Division 1 will be relegated to Division 2 in the next edition of the Championship, while top two teams in Division 2 will be promoted to compete in Division 1 instead.

In this year’s championship, Division 1 includes China, Iran and South Korea in Pool A1; Japan, Thailand and Turkmenistan in Pool B1; Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan and Australia in Pool C1; and Qatar, Iraq and hosts Bahrain in Pool D1.

In Division 2, Chinese Taipei, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia make up Pool A2; Hong Kong, Jordan and the UAE are in Pool B2; India, New Zealand and Uzbekistan are in Pool C2; and Macau, Maldives and Malaysia are in Pool D2.

The knockout rounds follow the opening round-robin stage of the competition.

Aside from being the Asian championship, this year’s tournament acts a qualifier for the FIVB Men’s U21 World Championship, which is scheduled to take place next year.

All are welcome to attend the matches at Isa Sports City, where two halls will be utilised daily. Entrance for spectators is free of charge.

THE host Bahrainis, fuelled by a massive home crowd that packed Isa Sports City in Riffa, have stormed to two stunning victories in their Preliminary Round campaign to move confidently into the knockout stage of the competition.

They disposed of Gulf rivals Qatar 3-0 (25-15, 25-16, 25-10) in a match that lasted just a little over an hour after recording a similarly impressive 3-0 victory (25-23, 28-26, 25-15) against Iraq to open the contest.

Bahrain have been playing to secure one of eight places to join the overall top eight in a Round of 16. The 23-nation Asian U20 Championship is following a complicated competition format for the first time.

Bahrain have been impressive. Ace Husain Thamer has enjoyed a superb tournament so far, posting 13 points overall including nine on attack. Sayed Alabbar had seven on attack while Hasan Haider had five.

Bahrain head coach Yusuf Khalifa said: “We have reached our target of winning both games in this round, and things are just going to get more difficult from now. We will play stronger teams in the next stage, but our guys are growing in confidence.”