NAGOYA: Malaysia booked their place in the men’s team regu sepak takraw semi-finals of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games as Group B winners after a 3-0 victory over India at Nagoya City Mizuho Arena on Tuesday (Sept 22).
Malaysia topped the group with three wins and will face the Group A runners-up, either South Korea or Indonesia, in the semi-finals on Thursday.
The national team took the lead through Mohd Zulkifli Abd Razak, Mohd Afifuddin Mohd Razali and Aidil Aiman Azwawi, who were made to work hard before defeating India’s first trio of Malemnganba Singh Sorokhaibam, Arun and Akash Yumnam 2-1 (15-13, 11-15, 15-6).
Malaysia’s main trio of Mohd Syahir Mohd Rosdi, Mohamad Azlan Alias and Farhan Adam then secured the second point with a 2-0 (15-9, 15-12) win.
The third trio of Mohd Zarif Marican, Amirul Zazwan Amir and Mohd Hafizul Hayazi Adnan completed the clean sweep with a 2-0 (15-11, 15-5) victory over India’s final trio.
Malaysia had earlier opened their campaign with a 3-0 win over hosts Japan before producing an identical result against the Philippines.
The national team are now chasing their first gold in the team regu event since their last victory at the Beijing 1990 Asian Games, 36 years ago.
National head coach Ahmad Jais Baharun said the players needed to sharpen several aspects of their game, particularly concentration, shot variation and first-ball touches, ahead of the semi-finals.
"Overall, we are satisfied with the players’ performance. However, there are elements we need to emphasise going into the semi-finals so that we do not become complacent or lose focus in such an important match.
"We need to improve our concentration and shot variation, while our first ball was somewhat loose in the second set of the main regu. Those are among the things we identified,” he said. - Bernama
