The Vietnamese women's volleyball team ranked first in the Asian preliminary round

After a quick 3-0 victory over Uzbekistan yesterday, August 31, Vietnam has a physical advantage when meeting Taiwan. The opponent was difficult to play, but Tran Thi Thanh Thuy and her teammates still played confidently and effectively in turning points to win 25-18 and 25-22 in the first two sets.

In the third set, coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet sometimes withdrew Thanh Thuy and Kieu Trinh from the court to preserve their strength, but replacements like Tran Tu Linh and Ly Thi Luyen did not play well. The team's first step was also inferior to the previous two innings leading to an 18-25 defeat.

Vietnam quickly restored order in set four, leading 5-0. After that, the team continuously maintained a gap of six to seven points with their opponents. Taiwan rallied to score a series of three points, but Vietnam quickly widened the gap, thereby winning 25-17 to end the match with a score of 3-1.

At the 2023 Asian Women's Volleyball Championship, teams receive three points if they win 3-0 or 3-1. If the score is 3-2, the winning team gets two points, and the losing team gets one point. Therefore, Vietnam won 3-2 Korea, 3-0 Uzbekistan and 3-1 Taiwan respectively to lead Group C with eight points. Ranked second is South Korea with six points after losing 2-3 to Vietnam, winning 3-2 Taiwan and 3-0 Uzbekistan.

Vietnam and South Korea will enter Group E in the qualifying round to compete for the semi-final position with the two leading teams in Group A, most likely the first team will be Thailand and the second will be Australia after tonight's series of matches. By leading the preliminary group, Vietnam has the advantage of meeting the second team first, then meeting the strongest opponent Thailand and not meeting Korea again. The results of the Korean match in the preliminary round were kept the same, so Vietnam definitely got two points.

The qualifying round will take place on September 3 and September 4. Also competing for semi-finals like Group E is Group F, with four teams: Japan, India, China and Kazakhstan.

The 2023 Asian Women's Volleyball Championship will be held in Thailand from August 30 to September 6 with 14 participating teams. After 20 times, China leads with 13 championships, followed by Japan (5) and Thailand (2). Vietnam's best performance is 5th place in 2015 and 2017.