Japan – Korea
Korea’s struggle surfaced early on in the opening set as Japan established its ascendancy in the three-set long duel. Japan dictated the tempo of the match mainly coming from the attacking deluge of hitters Saki Minemura, Miyu Nagaoka and Saori Kodaira. Korea looked helpless and could not break the momentum of the Japanese team.
The next two sets appeared to be like Japan was doing an attack drill, as the Korean team could not retaliate on this challenge and allowed Japan to increase their lead progressively in each set.
Japan were predominantly prepared to implement their attack strategy but one of Korea’s top hitters Han Song-yi struggled to get her spikes get past the net. Han’s lack of determination was an indication of Korea’s fatigue in this competition and the team’s sluggish movement on defence was like a signal to raise the white flag to their opponents.
