Russia captain Ekaterina Kosianenko: It is always tough to play against Japan, but our defence functioned well today. We prepared well for this match.
Russia coach Vladimir Kuziutkin: It’s not always possible to win in straight sets. We planned a good strategy and we are glad that it worked. Japan are always difficult opponents.
I have great respect for Japanese volleyball. In the past, Russia learned a lot from Japanese greats (Hirofumi) Daimatsu and (Yasutaka) Matsudaira and these learnings have helped our programme.
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Japan coach Kumi Nakada: Both sides had very different capabilities, but we did more damage to ourselves in the second set, more than the damage they have caused us.
It is difficult to win like this at this level. We tried to attack from the sides today instead of hitting from the back row, that was our strategy. We had scoring opportunities but our setters could not utilise the spikers well.
Japan captain Nana Iwasaka: We really let our opponents do what they wanted. We gave them momentum from our mistakes. We didn’t score when we had the chance to.
Japan player Koyomi Tominaga: We had some good rhythm on attacks but on crucial moments, our spikers could not score comfortably. Our passing was not flawless today.
Japan player Yuki Ishii: We had a good start and we played well, but in the second and third sets our reception fell into disarray. The Russians block worked well to stop our attacks.