Japan's quest to win its first women's volleyball Olympic medal since 2012 got off to a rocky start on Sunday when world No. 3 Poland handed it a three set to one loss at South Paris Arena.
In the teams' first Pool B match, fourth-ranked Poland's far superior blocking was the difference, with the Europeans scoring nine more points than Japan on defense with many more block attempts.
Two-time Olympic champion Japan won a close first set 25-20 which set the tone for a hard-fought match, with Poland taking the next three 25-22, 25-23 and 28-26, requiring two match points to get it done in the fourth.
"We made a lot of mistakes from the middle to the end of the game," reflected Yukiko Wada, who scored 13 points.
"Our opponents were big and took advantage of our errors to make the game close. The reason we lost was because we created difficult situations for ourselves."
The twin towers of Agnieszka Korneluk and Magdalena Stysiak carried Poland to the win, with the former scoring 20 points and the latter 18.
The 200-centimeter Korneluk was the linchpin on defense with eight successful blocks in Poland's first Olympic appearance since 2008.
Sarina Nishida did all she could to get seventh-ranked Japan over the line attempting 55 spikes and scoring 26 points. Mayu Ishikawa added 16.
Japan takes on Brazil next before closing out the pool stage against Kenya. The top two teams from each of the three groups plus the two best third-ranked squads reach the quarterfinals.
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