Captain Ishikawa shows his class, Japanese men's volleyball helps Asia make history at VNL 2023

With impressive successes in the group stage of VNL 2023, Japan reached the quarterfinals and met the opponent considered the most "easy to play" Slovenia. However, entering the knockout stage, any team will play with over 100% performance, and so does Slovenia, the European representative entered the game confidently to create consecutive points changes in the first set.

Despite being behind 21-23, Slovenia made a strong impression with 3 points in a row to take a 24-23 lead and stand in front of the set-point. But when cornered, Japan proved the level of the team that won 10 consecutive matches in the group stage, the points of Ran Rakahashi and Yuki Ishikawa helped the red shirt team to overcome and win 26-24 in the first set.

After 2 sets, Japan with a comfortable mentality and the top performance of the captain wearing the number 14 shirt helped the Asian representative to win the final 3-0 (26-24, 25-18, 25-22). Thereby VNL first witnessed an Asian men's team in the top 4.

Of Japan's total of 76 points in this match, 14 were from Slovenia's fault, 27 were scored by Yuki Ishikawa, and the remaining 35 were scored by other players. Thus, the captain born in 1995 alone scored 44% of Japan's score.

Not only showing her strength in the attack with 22 points, Yuki Ishikawa also brought back 4 block points and 1 direct tee point. If they continue to show their current form, it is clear that the 27-year-old captain and his teammates are not afraid of any opponents in the remaining journey.

Japan will face the winner in the match between Poland and Brazil taking place after a few minutes (1am today, July 21). This is considered the focal match in the quarter-finals of VNL 2023 when both Brazil and Poland are considered as top candidates for the championship.