How Japan's Best Trio Plays in 2023 | Japan vs Thailand | Asian Senior Men's Volleyball Championship

Yūki Ishikawa (石川祐希, Ishikawa Yūki, born 11 December 1995) is a Japanese male professional volleyball player from Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture.

Ishikawa is the first volleyball player to have a wax figure in Japan.[1] Currently, his wax figure is displayed at Madame Tussauds Tokyo.[2]

Ishikawa was named "Best outside spiker" award at the FIVB World Cup (2015, 2019), FIVB Nations League (2023), Asian Championship (2017, 2019, 2021), as well as "Most valuable player" award at the Asian Championship (2017).

As of April 2021, Ishikawa is the captain of the Japan men's national volleyball team, and plays as an outside hitter. He currently plays in the Italian Volleyball League for Allianz Milano.

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Ran Takahashi (髙橋 藍 or たかはしらん, Takahashi Ran, born 2 September 2001) is a Japanese male volleyball player and an Olympian. He plays as an Outside Hitter for Nippon Sport Science University's club, Japan men's national volleyball team and Vero Volley Monza.

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Yuji Nishida (西田 有志, Nishida Yūji, born 30 January 2000) is a Japanese left-handed volleyball player. Currently Nishida plays for Panasonic Panthers at club level.

Nishida made his debut with JTEKT Stings at V.League on 6 January 2018 in a match against Osaka Blazers Sakai. His impressive debut at the young age of 17 soon earned him a position in JTEKT's Starting 6,[5] as well as Japan men's national volleyball team. Nishida led the national team to seventh place at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, its best result 29 years.

Nishida was one of the youngest players in the 2018 roster of the Japan men's national volleyball team and FIVB cup Final.[6] He made his first international performance with the Japanese national team in 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League. In June 2018, he played a pivotal role in securing Japan's first win in 11 years against Italy where he collected 24 points from 21 spikes and 3 aces.[7] In September 2018, in a match against Argentina in 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship, Nishida became the youngest player ever to score 30 points in a match.[8] In June 2019, Nishida broke serving records in the VNL history after hitting 7 aces in a single game during a match against Canada.[9]

Nishida transferred to play for Volley Callipo in the Italian Volleyball League for the 2021–22 season.[10][11][12] He received MVP of the match awards thrice in spite of an injury and subsequent 2-month recovery. Nishida would become the highest scorer of his team, with a personal one-match record of 29 points, and held the record for the most aces in one match during the league's first round of the 2021/22 season with 8 aces.