Lankan beach spikers in top eight

Bernard Perera in Bangkok

Sri Lanka Beach Volleyballers took a great step forward yesterday by entering the top eight in the Asian region for the first time in its history.The Sri Lanka B team which had to face the Sri Lanka A team, overcame the seniors 2 sets to 1 (31-33, 21-19, 15-13) to achieve this success. Sri Lanka team who became the Group E champs were pooled to play against second Sri Lanka team when both teams qualified for the pre quarter finals on Saturday.

The game was played on a high note as both teams were equally balanced and the crowd that watched the game was given a good exhibition of Beach Volleyball through out the game.

First it was the A team that took the lead in the early stage but the B team players put up a gallant performance to come to equal terms. Both played well giving the spectators the maximum thrill, which they were expecting.

However none of the teams could finish the match at the 21 point mark and it had to go for extra time to decide the winner in the first set which went till 33-31.

With the A team comprising of Dhammika Silva and Pubudu Ekanayake, the B team came in for the next set with a clear determination to out play their seniors. The B team took an early lead with their seniors trying everything in store to stop the high riding B team. But the winners never made big mistakes again and kept on moving towards victory which they achieved at 21-19 which also equalized the sets one each.

This cleared way for the teams to go for the third set. In the third set too the B team went ahead of the A team with a slender lead of two points. They maintained this until the end of the set at 15-13.

With this victory The Sri Lanka B team gets another opportunity to move further up in standings with the ranking matches to be played today.

Meanwhile the women’s team of Sri Lanka fared badly playing against Strong out fit from China to lose in straight sets. Chinese women were so strong that they never gave room for the Lankans to score and ended the first set with ease at 21-7.

Takshila Gumasinghe and W.W. Sujeeva could not match the power play of the Chinese women. In the second set the Lankan women lost at 21-6. This score line proved that the Lankan strength was not sufficient to match the strong outfits of this nature at this level. They did not play their best at any stage.

Meanwhile in the women’s category, Japan who beat Sri Lanka on Saturday defeated Indonesia comfortably 2-0 to move towards the semifinals.In the men’s segment Kazakhstan team A defeated hosts Thailand 2-0 and New Zealand beat India after a grueling battle of 2-1.