SENDAI, JAPAN: Thailand earned its first victory in the 2017 FIVB World Grand Prix in dramatic fashion, stunning defending champions Brazil in straight sets on Saturday.
Led by Ajcharaporn Kongyot and Pleumjit Thinkaow with 10 points each, the Thai women prevailed 3-0 (25-22, 25-21, 29-27) over an uncharacteristically mistake-prone Brazil, winning 16 points from opponent errors.
Thailand earned the maximum 3 points from the victory, and now all four sides in Group D1 are tied with 1-1 records and three points after two matches.
The morale-boosting triumph was the first in 11 Grand Prix matches for Thailand, dating back to a win over Italy in June last year. They opened this year's event with three losses last week in the Netherlands and a 3-1 defeat to Japan on Friday.
In 12 previous Grand Prix meetings with Thailand, the mighty Brazilians had dropped only two sets but that all changed on Saturday. Brazil has won five out of the last nine editions of the annual tournament.
"I’m really happy to win today. It was such a tough match and we tried to avoid making simple mistakes," said Ajcharaporn after the match. "Our veteran players led us younger players really well, and I think that was great."
Coach Danai Sriwacharamaytakul said the squad went into the match with a definite game plan and it worked extremely well.
"The best thing about today was that we played as we planned, maximising the particular skills of each player," he said. "Brazil has such a high block and they’re strong, and they can play quickly. So it was tough to get every point against them.
"They made some service errors today, and that gave us a chance to play our games, to play our combinations. And I think we played as a team, together, and the result was a good game."
Thailand will hope to keep the momentum going on Sunday against Serbia but the women will face a stiff challenge. The Serbians, ranked first in the 12-team Group 1, defeated Japan in straight sets on Saturday. They have lost just three sets out of 15 in the tournament so far.
Thirty-two teams are competing in this year's 25th edition of the World Grand Prix, with the Group 1 finals set to take place from Aug 2-6 in Nanjing, China. The teams are split into three groups with 12 teams competing in Groups 1 and 2 and eight teams in Group 3.
The Group 1 Preliminary Round is being played over three weekends in four-team pools, with the top five in the combined standings plus the hosts of the finals making it to the final six. Groups 2 and 3 follow a similar format but with only four finalists emerging from each one.
The World Grand Prix has had only two champions since 2008, with Brazil winning five titles including last year, and the United States four.
Thailand's Ajcharaporn Kongyot spikes the ball during Saturday's World Grand Prix match against Brazil. (FIVB Photo)