Thais lose second straight battle at World Grand Prix
APELDOORN: Thailand suffered their second straight defeat at the FIVB World Grand Prix at Omnisport Apeldoorn on Saturday night.
The team, coached by Dana iSriwa chara may ta kul,lostt ohos ts Netherlands 3-0 (25-20, 26-24, 25-16).
The Dutch team, who have now won all six of their World Grand Prix matches against Thailand, also beat Dominican Republic 3-0 on the opening day.
The home team owed their convincing win to a stellar performance by Celeste Plak, who led all scorers with 17 points. Robin de Kruijf added 11 points for the Netherlands, including three blocks.
Ajcharaporn Kongyot led Thailand with 11 points while captain Pleumjit Thinkaow chipped in with eight.
“We played with good discipline today, according to the game plan we agreed. One of the main missions today was to watch the ball instead of the player, when we were blocking,” said Plak.
“We were fooled by Thailand a few times, but most of the times we did well. Because we served well, we made it easier for ourselves. At the end of the match we made a few unnecessary mistakes, but in the end, we kept our cool and finished it off.”
Thailand coach Danai said: “I am satisfied with my team’s performance in some parts of the match, when we succeeded to catch up with our rivals. Our reception was too poor today, and as a result of that we had trouble passing the strong Dutch block.”
Pluemjit added: “The Dutch players are very tall and strong, and we couldn’t stop them enough today, especially their counterattack. The fans today in Apeldoorn were amazing. A lot of Thai people living in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany came here to cheer for us, and we really appreciate this.”
In the other game in the pool, the Dominicans bounced back to defeat Japan 3-1 (25-20, 25-19, 24-26, 29-27).
Thailand were due to play the Dominicans while hosts Netherlands were scheduled to meet Japan in their last pool matches late last night.
In the 12-team Group 1 standings prior to last night’s matches, Serbia are top, followed by the Netherlands, United States, China, Brazil and Dominican Republic. Thailand are 10th.
The top-five teams from the pools competition and hosts China will play in the finals in Nanjing next month.