Nakhon Ratchsima, Thailand, September 28, 2008 - After the great success of the inaugural Asian Men’s Cup Volleyball Championship last week, the Mall Nakhon Ratchasima’s MCC Hall will become a battleground for another major competition – the first Asian Women’s Cup, which also doubles as the qualification tournament for the 2009 FIVB World Grand Prix, from October 1 to 7. The tournament acts as the Asian qualifier for next year’s FIVB World Grand Prix, with the final two places up for grabs. The competition has attracted the continent’s top eight teams to vie for the two berths for the World Grand Prix. Japan and China have already qualified for the 2009 edition. The Asian Volleyball Confederation gave the top eight teams from last year’s Asian Women’s Volleyball Championship the green light to compete in the Asian Women’s Cup Volleyball Championship. Group A comprises Vietnam, Korea, Chinese Taipei and hosts Thailand, while Group B consists of China, second place at last year’s Asian meet and bronze medallists at the recent Beijing Olympic Games, Australia, current Asian champions Japan and Malaysia, who replaced Kazakhstan. On October 1, Vietnam take on Chinese Taipei in the curtain-raiser at 11 a.m. local time, followed by the match between China and Malaysia at 1 p.m., Thailand and South Korea at 4 and Australia against Japan at 6. The first three days will be the group round-robin preliminaries, with October 4 the rest day. After the preliminaries, teams will be respectively ranked in each group for the next round’s inter-group matches. The group winners will take on the opposite group’s fourth-placed team and the second-placed team faces the third-placed team of the other group. Only the top four teams will make it to the semi-finals, while the losers will compete in the 5th-8th classification round. |
