QATAR and Japan’s youth handball teams have entered the semi-finals of the seventh Asian Youth Handball Championship taking place at the Khalifa Sports City hall in Isa Town.
Qatar claimed their second win of the tournament over Uzbekistan 15-25 in Group ‘B’ while Japan sealed an important win defeating Hong Kong 27-15 in Group ‘A’.
Qatar’s victory makes their last game in Group ‘B’ against South Korea a decider for the top spot as the Koreans are also guaranteed qualification after claiming their second win earlier.
The Qatari team put in a strong performance to end the first half in their favour leading 15-6 after showcasing a strong defence which blocked most of Uzbekistan’s chances.
In attack, the Qataris dominated in every aspect and managed to score from various opportunities with the help of their tactics which included a positional switch by most players.
The second half was very similar as Uzbekistan began to depend more on individual efforts than team-play. This helped the Qataris to easily march to victory with their better physical and tactical readiness.
Japan’s victory took them to the top of the table in Group ‘A’ with three wins from three games having defeated Saudi Arabia 28-24 and Iraq 27-22 previously.
Japan found no difficulty winning the game as they showed dominance from the opening minute in front of a relatively weak Hong Kong side.
Japan managed to end the first half leading 13-4.
The second half saw Hong Kong take a different approach and managed to decrease the gap to six goals trailing 15-9.
Time-out
However, after a string of saves from Hong Kong’s goalkeeper, Japan’s manager asked for a time-out to reshape his team. The strategy worked and Japan went on to seal victory.
The last game of the night saw Saudi Arabia claim their first win in Group ‘A’ defeating Iraq 24-21.
Saudi Arabia had earlier lost to Japan and Bahrain 24-28 and 23-25 respectively.
The Saudis managed to end the first half leading 13-11 after both teams fought well to keep their qualification chances alive.
Saudi Arabia, however, were the better side taking a five-goal lead early before Iraq could get back into the game.
The dying minutes of the first half saw the score go to 12-11 to Saudi Arabia as Iraq missed a number of chances to equalise.
The second half saw the Saudis keep good control of their lead and extend it to four goals as Iraq were handed their second loss of the tournament.