Iran volleyball players lose to Poland in FIVB World Cup

Iran’s national volleyball team has sustained an astonishing loss at the first round of the 2015 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) World Cup currently being held in Japan, going down to defending champion Poland despite being two sets to zero ahead.

On Saturday, the Iranian side lost the match played at the Hamamatsu Arena in the western Japanese city of Hamamatsu to Poland 2-3 (25-18, 25-23, 15-25, 20-25 and 11-15) even though it was only a few inches away from sweeping victory.

Iranian volleyball players got off to an impressive start, taking an early lead. Poland then took the game to the wire to earn points, but eventually dropped 25-18 to the Iranian team at the end of the first set.

The Iranian sportsmen carried on the momentum and claimed the second set of the match 25-23.

In the third set, the Polish volleyball players rebounded from their losses and brought the game under control to register a 25-15 victory.

The European squad maintained the lead in the fourth set to surge ahead, and rolled to a 25-20 win.

Poland’s outfit continued to chip away in the final set, and finally came away with a 15-11 victory.

"Today, we tried everything to play good volleyball and I think we did. To go 2-0 against Poland in a major championship is not so easy. After two sets, we didn’t stop playing but Poland returned. They started receiving very good and started to serve hard.

I was angry about the start of the fifth set. At 12-11 it could have been 11-11 and maybe the set would have finished differently," Iran coach Slobodan Kovac said after the match.

"It was a good match because both teams played very good volleyball. We started very well and thought we could win this match, but in the end they played better than us. Poland is in great shape and it’s very difficult to play them. Today we fought and our players did a great job, so it’s a disappointment," Iran's captain Saeid Marouf said.

The Iranian volleyball players are slated to face Russia on September 13 in their fifth match.

The 2015 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup started in Japan on September 8, and will finish on September 23.

The tournament is a qualification process for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The top two teams will qualify for the Olympics and join Brazil, which has already secured a berth as the host country.

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