Taipei, Chinese Taipei, September 26, 2008 ---Host Chinese Taipei, Japan, China and Korea clinched their semifinal berths at the 14th Asian Women’s Junior Volleyball Championship after beating their respective quarterfinal rivals all in straight sets.

Chinese Taipei downed New Zealand 25-11, 25-19, 25-20, Japan oulclassed Kazakhstan in straight sets (25-8, 25-10, 25-18), Korea defeated Thailand 3-0 and China beat Indonesia 25-11, 25-10, 25-18.

In the first game of the quarter-finals between Chinese Taipei and team New Zealand, who got the ticket to the quarter-finals after the match against Korea, the host girls, though defeatingtheir opponents in straight sets and booked a seat in the final four, seemed not as fit as they had been in previousgames, as they made many unforced errors in receiving and passing.

“Players in junior games would always calculate their rival’s strength and decide how hard they are going to play,” said Chinese Taipei head coach Sakakuchi Norimasa after the match. “This means their performance is still not stable enough. Though the girls know that they should put all of their effort into ever game, their body sometimes couldn’t follow their mind’s order.” As for the encounter with team China tomorrow Mr. Sakakuchi said: “I believe that you will see a different team of Chinese Taipei tomorrow.”

Similar situation happened in the next game between Japan, and Kazakhstan, as Japan made some errorsduring the whole game. Nevertheless, Japan still beat Kazakhstan 3-0 and made their way into the finalfour.

Team Korea also took down Thailand in straight sets and entered the top four. The scores of both teams in the

first set remained fairly close till the second technical time-out, but as Korean Joo Yea-Na and Hwuang Min-Kyoung fired some excellent spiking to enchance their team's performance, Korea won the set 25-21. The following two sets were filled with receiving errors by Thailand, therefore team Korea won the match 3-0 (25-21, 25-11, 25-15).

In the last game of the quarter-finals, the small but agile Indonesians gave the overwhelmingly tall China few troubles, but China still went into the final four with a very ease win over Indonesia.

In the first match after a rest day, Australia eliminated Sri Lanka from the games and obtained the chance to fight against India for the 9th place in this tournament. Team Australia started off brilliantly and took advantage of their dominating height over the Sri Lankans and finished the first two sets 25-17, 25-20. Although Sri Lanka’s blocking and defense gradually came into play and brought them back from the starting inferiority, thus enabling them to take the third set, Australia still proved themselves too tall for their opponents and ended the game 3-1 (25-17, 25-20, 19-25, 25-19).

In the semifinals, Japan will play Korea on September 27, China and Chinese Taipei will meet each other at 19:00. The winners of respective matches will compete for the championship of the tournament.

Australia and India will meet in tomorrow’s first match to fight for the 9th place In the 5th-8th classification matches, New Zealand will play Indonesia while Thailand will meet Kazakhstan.