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Four counries out of Africa volleyball qualifiers for World Cup

Xinhua, June 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

Africa giants Tunisia, Morocco, Botswana and Mauritius have been bundled out of contention for the ticket to the volleyball World Cup in Japan on the fourth day of the Africa Championships in Nairobi on Tuesday.

Tunisia, who required a win against emerging Senegal, were left to tears as they lost 2-3 sets having led 2-0. Morocco and Mauritius were also kicked out of the competition and will now have to battle for the fourth to eighth ranking spots.

This leaves hosts Kenya, Senegal, Cameroon and Algeria in the final four to compete for the two available slots to compete at the World Cup in Japan in September.

The volleyball World Cup will serve as the first qualifier for the Rio Olympics, where the best four teams in Japan will qualify to compete in Brazil in 2016.

Playing as tournament underdogs, Senegal continued their thrilling comeback for the third match in a row as coming from two sets behind to beat the Morocco 3-2 (23-25, 22-25, 25-9, 25-18, 15-9) to lead Pool B with 3-0 and 6 points.

"I don't know why we always make late rallying calls in the game, because during team talks before any match we always tell ourselves to take the lead but that doesn't happen. Maybe we'll need to be in front in our semifinal match against Kenya," Senegal's player Fatou Diouck said Tuesday in Nairobi.

Tunisia came third in Pool B, with 1-2 record ahead of Morocco, who finished fourth. On the other Pool A, Botswana came third with 1-2 record, with Mauritius finishing fourth.

Kenya, who are eight time African Champions continued their victories with clean sheet as they cruised past Botswana 3-0 (25-19, 25-12, 25-18) to improve their win-loss ratio in Pool A to 3-0, and remain the only team yet to drop a set in the preliminary round.

Kenya will be joined by Algeria from the same pool to semis after the latter clinched their second win over Mauritius 3-0 (25-15, 25-15, 26-24) to improve to 2-1.

Cameroon came back to their optimum performance on time to beat Tunisia 3-2 (15-25, 25-18, 28-26, 24-26, 15-13) and clinch the semifinal slot. Tunisia came third in Pool B with 1-2 record ahead of Morocco who finished fourth.

Now Algeria will meet pool B leaders Senegal in one of the semifinals on Wednesday, with host and defending champions Kenya playing Cameroon who finished second in pool B.

Botswana faces Morocco, while Tunisia lines up against Mauritius in the battle for position five to eight. Endi