The Federation Cup volleyball championship for men and women for the Sulochana Trophy will get underway on Sunday at the Nanjappa Boys HSS here.
Thirteen (nine men and four women) teams will take part in the eight-day championship.
Railways will start favourite in both men’s and women’s categories. Tamil Nadu men have won the title once and have finished runners-up twice. Kerala women have triumphed twice and placed second once.
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Bengal women’s team’s coach Biswajit Ghosh was cautious ahead of his team’s clash against Kerala “We are missing central blockers, Thakur Moni and Priyanka. But libero Primosmita, who was with the Railways squad in the senior National, has been released and is a part of our team now.”
Railways’ men’s coach Naresh Kumar sounded very confident. “We have brought youngsters for this tournament. Vikas and Manikandan are setters in place of K.G. Kapil Dev and R. Prabhu while Mohan is in place of Narender Singh as central blocker.”
Defending men’s champion Karnataka along with Kerala, Uttarakhand and Services are in Group ‘A’ while last year’s runner-up Tamil Nadu along with Railways, Punjab, Indian Universities and Uttar Pradesh are in Group ‘B’.
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In the women’s category, defending champion Kerala, last year’s runner-up Railways, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are taking part in the event which be held in the round-robin-league format.