TEHRAN, Jul. 22 (MNA) – Iranian volleyball team win title-holders China in their first match at 2018 Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship.

Iran made a sweep win against China (25-22, 25-13, 25-22) in a match held at Manama’s Isa Sport City Hall on Saturday.

The last encounter of these two team was in the final of 2017 competitions where China had gained victory over Iran.

Bagging 14 points, Morteza Sharifi was Iran’s best scorer while Chinese Diao Jianfei managed to get 20 points and named as the best scorer of the match.

“My players did really a good job today. In the third set, they acted like they won the match so they missed some points, providing the chance for China to catch up. We are trying to do our best to win every match. For us, every match is like the final one and we fight for every ball,” said Iran’s coach Behrouz Ataei, Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) website reported.

Iran is in Pool A of competition along with East Asian teams of China and South Korea.

Iran will face South Korea at their second match on Monday.

The 19 edition of Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship kicked off on July 21 in Bahrain’s Manama and will go through July 28.

The top two teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men's U21 World Championship as the AVC representatives.

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