The Indian men's volleyball team put up a spirited fight against the much-fancied South Korea before losing 22-25 25-27 18-25 in a closely contested group E play-off match at the Asian Games here today.
While India may have lost the encounter in three straight sets, they gave a tough fight to the host nation in each of the three with the first two going down to the wire.
What cost India the match was off-form of 6ft 9 inch spiker GR Vaishnav, who could garner only four points for his team.
While veteran Punjab player Gurinder Singh was impressive at the net with 13 points, Naveen Raja Jacob also got 10 points with his deceptive drops.
Libero Kanagaraj Sivasubramanium had an inconsistent day with a few good retrievals while there were certain points where he was not in a position to defend forceful spikes from Kwangin Jeon and Park Chulwoo.
It was Prabhakaran's ineffective spikes that also cost India at key points as he could successfully log home only eight points.
The Indian men will play their next group league play-off against Qatar tomorrow.
