Kazakhstan continues march in water polo

DUBAI. November 21. KAZINFORM Heavyweights Kazakhstan, the Asian number one and Japan crushed Hong Kong and Thailand in the morning's matches at the 9th Asian Swimming Championships on Tuesday.
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On Monday night, Kazakhstan had to use all their firepower and experience before edging Japan 10-9 in a thrilling Pool B encounter in the main pool on Level 2.

On Tuesday, the Japanese bouncing back from the narrow loss to Asian champions Kazakhstan, beat the upcoming young Thai team 27-2. Kazakhstan had put up gritty shows in the London Olympics in summer this year, Khaleej Times reports.

Masahiro Ichikawa and Koji Takei topped the score sheet for Japan, with four goals each. All but the goalie found themselves on the scorers' sheet.

Kazakhstan defeated inexperienced Hong Kong 26-2. In the evening matches on Monday, the hefty Chinese women nailed the pin-sized, inexperienced and technically inadequate Indian girls 40-1.

In the other late night matches on Day 1, Saudi Arabia after going down 4-8 to Uzbekistan in the afternoon, lost 2-16 to China. China beat Sri Lanka 26-2 in the morning game earlier in the day, and Thailand outpaced Hong Kong 12-4 after the 6pm sprint first whistle. In women's action on Day 1, Kazakhstan blasted hapless Hong Kong 34-0, and Uzbekistan defeated Singapore 13-3.

Rustam Ukumanov, the hero of Kazakhstan's win over Japan on Monday night, powered in with six thunder shots off both wet and dry passes for a 100 per cent strike rate.

"The Hong Kong team is a young team with a lot of new players so it was difficult for them. But hopefully they will become more experienced and strong again like they used to be," Kazakh coach, Sergey Drozdov said.

"I think Kazakhtsan, Japan and China will be the teams playing for the top place in this tournament. In Asia, we are usually the top teams. Yesterday (Monday) it was a very difficult game for us against Japan so I was happy with our win.

"Hopefully we will get better and better with every game. Every time they play every coach and every player wants to win so we will do our best. We have some secrets how we'll do that but we will keep them secret," added Drozdov. He turned up in Kazakh colours at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games.

"Playing at the Olympics now in London was a very good experience for us as a team. After the Olympic Games, the mentality changed and we are working even harder now."

Katsumi Kuroda, Asia Swimming Federation (AASF) technical director for water polo on Monday night told the media centre representative: "In Asia, China, Japan and Kazakhstan are all neck and neck and there is very keen and close competition between the teams."

"It will be interesting to see how this tournament develops as all the teams have their different strategies in building their teams to try to qualify for the next Olympic Games in 2016."

Read more here http://www.khaleejtimes.com/

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