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Egyptians end on a high with a
third successive victory over Australia
 Tokyo,
Japan, December 2, 2007 — African champions Egypt downed Asian
champions Australia in four sets in their final game of the
men’s World Cup on Sunday. Man of the match Abdalla Ahmed
recovered from a head injury in the early stages to inspire
Egypt to a 25-14, 23-25, 25-21, 25-22 victory at Komazawa
Gymnasium in Tokyo. It was Egypt’s third victory of the
tournament to be the first African team in the history to
achieve this, while Australia dropped to 4-7.European champions
Spain downed African vice champions Tunisia in four sets on
Sunday to end the men’s World Cup with a 7-4 record and finish
in fifth place. Man of the match Guillermo Falasca inspired the
Spanish to a 25-16, 25-22, 21-25, 25-18 win at Komazawa
Gymnasium in Tokyo, handing the Tunisians their 10th defeat of
the tournament.Paul Carroll ended the tournament on 200 points,
likely finishing behind just Hector Soto in the race for most
points scored by a player, depending on any unlikely scoring
feat in the Japan-Brazil match at Site A.Ahmed was in fine
fettle for Egypt from the start of proceedings and he smacked
down a big spike to make it 8-3 at the first technical timeout,
before smashing in an ace to make it 10-5.Australia were caught
cold by the Egyptians’ aggressive start to the game and despite
coach Russell Borgeaud making a number of early substitutions
Egypt continued to run away with it and led 16-9 at the second
TTO.The Aussies’ tendency to spike long on occasion meant Egypt
were soon 20-11 ahead and they increased that lead with an ace
from Hossam Shaarawy.Egypt soon closed out the set. Ahmed aced
for 23-15 and then did exactly the same to gain set point. And
after some brilliant recovery play, Egypt won the set when
Nathan Roberts spiked into the net.Yet another ace from Ahmed
got Egypt off to a good start in the second set but then
disaster struck as he was hit in the head by a teammate when
hitting a spiked winner and the North Africans’ star man
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Egypt edge rivals Tunisia in
four sets
 Tokyo,
Japan, December 1, 2007 -- Egypt won Saturday's battle of North
Africa at Komazawa Gymnasium with a 25-21, 18-25, 25-21, 25-22
World Cup victory over Tunisia.
It was a big match for both teams, not least because they were
both struggling with identical 1-8 records in the tournament.
But also North African pride was at stake, with African
champions Egypt maintaining their recent form over their
archrivals, who were runners-up in the African Championship.
Egypt had four players in double figures and were led by Mohamed
Badawy with 16 points, followed by Ahmed Abd Elnaeim with 14 and
captain Hamdy Awad with 13.
Tunisia's big gun Hichem Kaabi again came up big, scoring 24 of
his team's 89 points, while Noureddine Hfaiedh came up with 13. |
