Maldives National Volleyball Women’s team lost the first match they played in the Central Zone Championship against Uzbekistan by straight three sets.

Uzbekistan played against Maldives and took the sets by 25-11, 25-8, ad 25-11. 

This is the first match that the women’s team played after South Asian Games in 2019 in Nepal’s Kathmandu. National Women’s Team had earned silver medal in the Central Zone Championship held in 2019. However, most of the senior players that played in that tournament are not in this tournament.

The average age of this year’s national team is around 20-21. 4 players who won the silver medal last time around are still in the team. One of these players is current captain Aishath Imthinaan (Naan).

In the first set of the match, Uzbekistan made use of their tall players in both attack and defense and took a 7-0 lead. Maldives tried to get back some points but Uzbekistan’s receives and defense were solid and they took the set by 25-11.

The first point of the second half was also taken by Uzbekistan. But right after this, the electricity of the stadium went out for around 10 minutes and the match had to be paused. Even after the match was resumed, we still saw that Uzbekistan was keeping its momentum. And they finished the second set with an even bigger lead of 25-8.

In the third set, Maldives had equalized with Uzbekistan 3-3. But Uzbekistan upped their game and went on to win point after point. They ended up taking the set 25-11 and winning the match.

National team’s coach Mumthaaz Ali (Munthey) stated that he saw that the players were a bit anxious at the start of the match. However, overall it was not a bad performance from a junior team in their first match.

Munthey said that after the match, he is more aware of the team’s conditions and that he can make use of this match while preparing for the upcoming matches.

The next match will be against Nepal tomorrow. After that, they will play against Sri Lanka on Saturday and Kyrgyzstan on Sunday. The last match of the league stage will be played against Bangladesh on Monday. The final will be played between the top 2 teams of the league. And the third place and fourth place teams would play against each other in a team ranking match.

--Article by Adhadhu