HYDERABAD: A spirited Yanam Tigers stunned table toppers Chennai Spikers with a 25-23, 27-25, 19-25, 25-19, 15-12 win on the opening day of the fourth and final leg of the inaugural IVL at KVB Reddy Indoor Stadium on Monday.
Earlier Hyderabad Chargers had to dig in deep before rallying to beat Maratha Warriors 18-25, 19-25, 25-16, 25-15, 19-17 while Karnataka Bulls got the better of Kerala 34-32, 32-30, 25-14 in the first match.
The final match had all the ingredients of a thriller. The Spikers looked comfortable and breezed home in the first set with Kapil Dev doing the spade work at the net. However, in the second, the tall Subba Rao made a huge difference to the fortunes of Tigers. His towering presence at the net, particularly at the blocking, upset Spikers plan. Rao time and again made his presence with his effective blocks to help Tigers level the match.
Although the Spikers came back into the match, Tigers took control of the proceedings Tom Joseph, too, struck a few telling smashes. In the final and decisive set, Tigers roared to a facile win. Chargers now lead the table with 28 points while Spikers have 27 points.
In the Chargers-Warriors match, the latter began on a sound note. They breached the Chargers’ defence with some deadly smashes, both from the middle and outside. Libero Surender Kumar was superb with first passes. This helped Gurchand Singh and skipper G Pradeep to fox the rivals. Gurchand, who had a back problem in the first two matches, was fast and accurate while the home-town boy Pradeep was blemishless in his work.
On the other hand, with libero Vinod Neggi being off colour, things did not work out according to plans for the Chargers. As a result, skipper M Ukkra Pandian could not execute his shots. Warriors coasted home by the winning the first two sets.
In the decider, the match went to the wire. Chargers, at one stage were leading 13-9 before Warriors bounced back and it went to 17-all before the home team held the nerves to clinch the match.
