AVC Men’s U23 Championship/Australia Finished 11th at Asian Men’s U23 Championship

Ardabil, Iran, May 5, 2017 – Australia finished 11^th as the last team of tournament and lost to Uzbekistan 3-0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-21) at the SMM 2^nd Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship at Rezazadeh 6000-seat stadium.

Australians did their best to keep the momentum but Uzbekistan take the lead and left no opportunity for the opponent as they lost the first two sets 25-22, 25-19. Australians enter the court with better mentality and could take the lead but some substitutions were made by the Uzbek coach enable them to win the match in straight sets.

Benjam Hardy, the head coach of Australia after the match said: “my players must be more patient as they did their best in the main balls but not patient enough to get the point.”

Concerning the venue and the facilities provided, he said: “This stadium has the capacity to host world tournaments. The floor is great and everything including the hotel, food, and organization was very good”.

The best-scorer of Australia, Dosanjh stated: “Australia have so many great players at this age group. They are not in this tournament as they were committed to their clubs in Europe. So, in the future we will appear with better performance”.

Karimjan Rakhimkulov, Uzbek coach promised: “we will be 9^th in this tournament and we will bring loss to Sri Lanka on Sunday. Our true rank should have been the 6^th but we were not able to play in full measure”.