GUANGZHOU, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Japan rallied from two sets down to upset undefeated South Korea on Wednesday to enter the finals of the men's volleyball tournament at the 2010 Asian Games.
The win earned Japan a place in the gold medal match against Iran at the Guangzhou Gymnasium on Friday. Iran outclassed Thailand 25-16, 25-21, 25-16 in another semifinal on Wednesday.
It's doomed to be a close game when the Asian's top two men's teams showed up at the Guangyao Gymnasium court. Both teams hit and blocked evenly and tied from 5-5 to 25-25, but Japan gave up two additional points to errors, enabling South Korea to take the set 27-25.
South Korea kept its advance thanks to their rival's errors again in the second set and took the set 25-21.
Japan came back strongly from the third set and took the set 25-18 as a result of South Korea's inability to return hits and serves over the net.
South Korea jumped to an 8-5 lead in the fourth set but Japan, again, came back after first technical timeout to close the gap to one point. South Korea's Suk Jin-Wook went down with a knee injury and Japan began to build an insurmountable lead. Moon Sung-Min sent his serve into the net to give Japan the set point at 24-20 and Shimizu Kunihiro's block closed the set at 25-20.
Both sides were plagued with service errors in the deciding set. Japan led 8-6 to switch the courts and race towards set and match point at 14-9.
Moon's powerful kills kept South Korea in game, but Fukuzawa Tatsuya answered the hit with a decisive kill that sent Japan into the final at 15-9.
South Korea will compete in bronze medal match on Friday against Thailand.
Earlier on Wednesday, host China hammered Saudi Arabia 25-20, 25-21, 25-15. With the victory, China will clash with India in the fifth-place play-off on Friday. India defeated Qatar in straight sets with a 25-23, 25-16, 25-17 victory.
