The men’s semi-final match-ups have been set at the 2019 International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) Goalball Asia-Pacific Championships in Chiba, Japan.

With only one more round-robin game to play on Monday (9 December), Japan, China, Iran and South Korea have all secured their places in the knock-out stages.

Six games were played in the men’s on Sunday (8 December).

The face-offs included two more wins for 2017 silver medallists Iran, leaving them with just one loss in the tournament so far.

In their first game the Iranians put 11 past Australia, including five for Hasan Jafari whose second-half performance saw him dominate proceedings.

Iran then reached a 10-2 victory over Japan.

However that did not put pay to Japan’s hopes of a place in the semi-final. They had already beaten Indonesia 10-6 in their morning game. Half their goals came from Kazuya Kaneko to secure a place in the next stage.

Title-holders China, who are unbeaten, and South Korea qualified with one game in hand.
The Chinese reached their latest win with a 14-6 scoreline against Australia.

Liang Chen netted six goals before the first whistle before he was rested. Changgui Cai and Mingyuan Yang took over the driving seat in the second half, scoring three goals each.

Despite a tense 3-3 results against Thailand which delivered the first draw of the competition, South Korea will also advance to the semi-finals.

China will face South Korea and Japan will take on Iran for a place in the final.

Women’s

Just two women’s games were contested on Sunday as teams will have to wait for the final round robin games on Monday to discover their fate.

Defending champions Japan and China are in a strong position after winning their respective games against South Korea and Australia on Sunday.

Full results can be found at https://www.gb-aprc.com/schedule and live coverage is available at IBSA’s YouTube channel.

As well as the title on offer, the winners of Chiba 2019 will also qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, if they have not already qualified.