Volleyball coach, players due in Karachi today

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Iranian volleyball coach Hamid Movahedi and players will reach Karachi on Tuesday to kick-start preparations for the 2019 Asian Under-21 Beach Volleyball Championships to be held in Bangkok from March 16-18.

The camp will be held within next couple of days at Navy’s sports facility here in Minora. “Yes coach and six players will reach Karachi tomorrow to begin preparation,” Pakistan Volleyball Federation’s (PVF) chairman Ch Yaqoob told ‘The News’ on Monday. “We have requested Navy for the training space in Minora and hopefully in the next couple of days training will begin there,” Yaqoob said.

The coach and players will stay at the Navy’s complex.Pakistan will be fielding its two teams in the competitions which also will serve as qualifiers for the Under-21 World Beach Championships slated to be held in the Udon Thani, Thailand, from June 18 to 23, 2019. Pakistan’s ace players Zarnab and Afaq would form one team and the other side would be created from the rest of the four players which will be put in the camp. The six players are coming to Karachi via train. Movahedi, who lives in Istanbul, had left for his hometown on leave after Pakistan’s Under-23 camp was disbanded in Islamabad at the end of last month.