Tunis, Tunisia, June 10, 2017 –
Hamza Nagga hammered out as many as 25 points to carry
Tunisia to a dramatic five-set victory over
Chinese Taipei. In front of their home fans in Tunis, the Tunisians managed a 3-2 (25-23, 23-25, 25-17, 20-25, 15-12) win against their Asian opponents on Saturday evening.
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Nagga was the best scorer of the match, while
Hung-Min Liu topped the charts for Chinese Taipei with 20.
The only previous meeting between Tunisia and Chinese Taipei in a major international competition took place last weekend. In a World League fixture in Montenegro the African side managed a 3-1 win, and now the head-to-head record is doubled to 3-0 in favour of Tunisia.
The first set of the game in Tunisia was very tight and competitive. While the fans created a great atmosphere at the hall, the two teams stayed close to each other on the scoreboard and often alternated in taking the lead. Eventually,
Chokri Jouini’s spike converted the first set point into a 25-23 Tunisian win.
The second set’s scenario was quite similar, only this time Chinese Taipei managed to come out on top with a 25-23 win, with
Hong-Jie Liu’s huge block bringing the last point.
In set 3, the home team managed to impose its domination on the court. With great spiking efforts by Nagga and Jouini, the inspired Tunisians broke away around the first technical time-out and never looked back – 25-17.
Chinese Taipei had no intention of giving and took their turn for winning a set. The Asian squad took control of the fourth set, opened up a wide gap and, despite a late effort by the Africans to claw back up the scoreboard, the match was tied after a 25-20 close in a favour of Chinese Taipei.
The tie-breaker was mostly about the home team. Tunisia took an early lead never let it go. A powerful spike by substitute
Mohamed Ali Ben Othmen Miladi stopped the clocks at 15-12 and sent the home guys celebrating.