The Dominican Republic outlasted the Thai women's volleyball team 3-2 in a closely fought third-round opener of the FIVB World Grand Prix 2017 at Hua Mark Indoor Stadium in Bangkok on Friday evening.
The scoreline (25-17, 21-25, 26-24, 21-25, 7-15) from the five-set nail-biter indicated how closely matched the two sides were in their first Group H1 encounter. Thailand did manage to win 35 points off opponent errors to their opponents' 23, but the Dominicans scored 14 points from blocks to the Thais' 5, and prevailed 59-49 in points from spikes.
The Thai scorers were led by Chatchu-on Moksri with 23 points and Ajcharaporn Kongyot with 10. Gina Altagracia Mambru Casilla paced the winners with 25 points.
Thailand, ranked 10th after the first two pool events in the Netherlands and Japan, lost 3-1 to the Dominicans in the Netherlands two weeks ago.
Thailand's next match will be on Saturday at 6pm against Turkey, who lost 3-1 to Italy on Friday. The weekend concludes with the Thailand-Italy match in Sunday at 6pm. The matches will be shown live on Channel 3HD (33).
Entering the third and final weekend of pool play, Thailand had won just one of their first six matches, a shocking straight-sets upset of defending champions Brazil in Senda, Japan last week. It was the first victory in 11 Grand Prix matches for Thailand, dating back to a win over Italy in June last year.
The top five sides in the 12-team preliminary round join hosts China in the finals in Nanjing next month.
Serbia are the overall leaders in the preliminary campaign, followed by the Netherlands, the United States, Italy, China and Japan.
The World Grand Prix, now in its 25th year, has had only two champions since 2008, with Brazil winning five titles including last year, and the United States four.