TN meets Services in semifinals

As expected, Tamil Nadu hammered Rajasthan 25-17, 25-15, 25-15 on Friday to emerge the most convincing winners in the quarters. Attacker Naveen Raja Jacob, universal C. Jerome Vinith and blocker G.R. Vaishnav were outstanding for last year’s runners-up.

Services pulled off a coup by beating Railways 25-20, 25-16, 25-23.

Shijas Mohammed and Sharad Chandra were in excellent touch for the winners. The result was a big blow for Railways, who many thought would reach the last four without fuss. Tamil Nadu would be confident of entering the final because they had beaten Services in straight sets in a league match. At the same time, P. Sundaram’s team can’t afford to be complacent.

Punjab, inspired by Gurinder Singh, dragged Kerala to the decider. The defending champions, however, rode on the smashes of Tom Joseph and blocks of Azeez to come through. Uttarakhand also faced some resistance from Haryana before they moved up with a 3-1 win.

Friday turned out be a memorable day for Tamil Nadu as the state’s women crushed UP 25-12, 25-15, 25-16 to set up a semi-final meeting with Kerala.

All the quarterfinal matches will be shown live on DD Sports on Saturday.

Results

QF: Men: Tamil Nadu bt Rajasthan 25-17, 25-14, 25-15. Services bt Railways 25-20, 25-18, 25-23. Kerala bt Punjab 25-19, 25-20, 23-25, 19-25, 15-8. Uttarakhand bt Haryana 22-25, 26-24, 25-22, 25-19. Women: Railways bt Karnataka 25-9, 25-18, 25-13. Haryana bt West Bengal 25-22, 25-21, 20-25, 16-25, 15-8. Tamil Nadu bt UP 25-12, 25-15, 25-16. Kerala bt Punjab 25-13, 25-10, 25-10.

Action today

SF: Men: Kerala vs Uttarakhand (12.30 pm). Tamil Nadu vs Services (4.30 pm). Women: Railways vs Haryana (2.30 pm). Tamil Nadu vs Kerala (6.30 pm)