Incheon: Qatar finished sixth in the basketball tournament at the Asian Games after suffering a 70-60 defeat to China in their play-off at the Samsan World Gymnasium here yesterday.
Later, China’s medal hopes were also ruined when the seven-time Asian champions failed to make the semi-finals after losing to Japan 79-72 for the first time ever.
China stunned Qatar early on with a sensational scoring display in the first quarter, which gave them a massive 29-10 advantage. Qatar never recovered from that onslaught and although they managed to score a whopping 20 points in the second quarter, the Chinese stayed comfortably ahead to close out the match.
Mohamed Baker scored a game-high 24 points but the rest of the team failed to fire as China enjoyed leads of 40-35 and 61-43 after the second and third quarters.
A last period fight-back, which saw Qatar score 17 points while China managed just nine was a creditable effort although it came a tad too late.
“We let them score too freely in the first quarter and that took the match away from us,” said Qatar coach Vasileios Fragkias.
“China are the giants of Asian basketball and when you let them take a big early advantage you can’t do much about it later,” he conceded.
Gao Ailun and the seven-foot-one Zhou Qi excelled for the defending champions with 15 points each while Ding Yanyuhang contributed 13.
“It was disappointing for us as the defending champions to not make the semi-finals, so I guess we have to take the fifth place as a matter of consolation,” Chinese coach Gong Luming said.
Qatar were hampered by an injury to their captain and talisman Yaseen Musa, who only managed to see a few minutes of action in the tournament and completely missed yesterday’s game.
Qatar’s best finish at the Asian Games is second — a feat achieved in Doha in 2006.
Meanwhile South Korea set up a gold medal clash with Iran after beating Japan 71-63 in tense encounter.
Both teams were neck-and-neck until the midway stage before South Korea pulled 49-43 clear at the end of the third quarter and then continued to stay ahead to clinch victory.
In the other semi-final,
Iran prevailed over Kazakhstan 80-78.
Later yesterday, China also ended Qatar’s medal hopes in volleyball at the Asian Games with a 25-23, 20-25, 25-23, 25-21 victory in the quarter-finals at the Songnim Gymnasium here.
In a marathon match lasting one hour and 58 minutes, it was the Chinese who won the big points to stay on course for their third gold in Asian Games volleyball after winning the title in 1990 and 2010 when they hosted the event. QOC
