Silver medalist at the last edition in Doha, Japan began its program in the women's hockey competition of the Asian Games at Guanzhou with a 4-1 victory over Kazakhstan on Saturday.
Experience an unusual measure of difficulty in finding the rhythm early enough Japan made a heavy weather of the opponent whose arrival at the venue for the Games was uncertain till a day before the opening ceremony. But the Kazakhis showed no strain of weariness and even managed to score a goal in the final minutes.
Ai Murakami, who scored two goals after the match said, ÔÇ£Since this is the first match, we were determined to win, But still we made early mistakes today. We will be more careful in the following games.ÔÇØ This sums up the essence of the match.
Korea, the former champion and a power-house in woman's hockey faced more than expected resistance from Thailand. The result gave immense satisfaction to the team's management which is accustomed to witnessing the team slaughtered by two digit margins.
India gained a 3-0 victory over Malaysia to take full points. Listless in the beginning and let to be stopped with a 1-0 lead, India packed a bit of punch in the second half to score three more goals.
The results: Women
Japan 4 (Ai Murkami 2, Aki Mitsuhashi, Mie Nakashima) beat Kazakhstan 1 (Vera Domasshneva) HT 4-0.
Korea 5 (Eunsil Kim, Park Mihyun 2, Cheon Seul 2 ) beat Thailand 0 HT 1-0.
India 4 (Chanchan, Deepika Thakur, Rani Ramphal, Surineder Kau) beat Malaysia 0 HT 1-0.
Sunday's matches: Women: Korea v Kazakhstan ; Japan v Malaysia; China v Thailand
