Japan keeps the perfect record
The Asian team overcame a willing Serbian who faced the Japanese evenly for two periods
Japan, as predicted, wins against Serbia but has to struggle for two periods before getting the better of the willing opponents, capable of keeping up with the strongest opponents and keeping the score at 3-3 up to the 44th minute, when the goal by Shigeki Hitosato definitively broke the balance and allowed Japan to find four more goals until the final 8-3, a score too hard for the Serbs.
The game had started well for Japan, 2-0 after 2 minutes and 30 and it looked like there could be a hail of goals at the Tondiraba Arena. Instead, while almost always maintaining control of the game, Japan has struggled to undermine the careful Serbian defense.
At the beginning of the second period, playing two power plays very well, Serbia managed to equalize through Mateja Popovic and Pavle Podunovac, however the draw lasted only 13 seconds, before Yushiroh Hirano's 3-2, which closed the period central. In the last quarter, as mentioned, after the short-lived Serbian draw, Japan found 5 goals, maintaining the perfect record in the tournament and proposing themselves as the team to beat
