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China women's volleyball team claim 2nd straight win at Dalian
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DALIAN, Northeast China, May 31 (Xinhuanet) -- China,
the top-ranked team coming into the PetroChina KunLun Cup China International
Women's Volleyball Tournament, ruled out a late comeback from the Dominican
Republic to claim their second straightwin in the preliminary round here on
Tuesday.
A late rally by the Dominican team fizzled
against China, as thehosts quickly found their rhythm again after losing the
chance of winning in straight sets, closing the match 25-19, 25-18, 21-25,
25-18.
Wang Yimei, a 17-year-old Liaoning native who
has been regarded a promising key star for the national squad, lost her position
in the starting lineup in Tuesday's game and was substituted for Yang Hao down
the stretch of the match on 24-18 as she killed the match point with an ace.
China recruited several young players after winning
the gold medal at the Athens Olympic Games and Ma Yunwen, Xue Ming, Wang Ting
and Zhao Yun made their internatinoal debut in last week's Shenzhou Cup at
Beilun, Southeast China.
After Monday's 3-1 opening
win over Japan here, Chen Zhonghe, the head coach of China women's team, angered
at his squad and blamed that none of Chinese players, especially the newcomers,
had performed well in game.
In Tuesday's game, the
19-year-old Ma Yunwen was again put on the position that once belonged to
China's tallest volleyball girl
Zhao Ruirui, who will
miss all the competitions in 2005 due to a calf fracture which ruled her out of
the Athen Olympic Games, whileZhang Ping, a member of China's Olympic team in
Athens, was placed for main attack.
"Zhang Ping
has proved herself a key to the squad's attack through this match, and Ma Yunwen
and Wang Yiwen showed clearly that they still have lots to improve before
staying on among the starters," said Chen, who led China to their first world
title in 17 years at Japan World Cup in 2003 and to win the Olympic gold last
August.
A hard-hitting, high-jumping attack led by
Zhang Ping and Chu Jinling sparked the Chinese to a comfortable start and an
easy win in the first set, 25-18.
Then the host
stretched the lead to 2-0 with eight unforced errors from the Dominicans during
the second set. China, however, sent out totally seven errors in the third set
where the Dominican team ran off six points in a row to overtake on 16-13 from
10-12 down.
The fourth set finally came out a
decisive one when both sides suffered from serving problems and the less worse
one China won thematch.
"Our starting lineup had the
overwhelming attacking force but made squander of it," said Chen.
"There have been too many ups and downs and the
newcomers didnotshow their capability of reading the game."
"We fought back," said Dominican head coach Erancisco
Cruz Jimenez. "I'm satisfied with our performance today, especially that in the
third and fourth sets. Being down 2-0 is not easy. I just think we ran out of
gas there at the end."
"China is a
much stronger team than us and they showed us what volleyball is," added
Jimenez.
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(Editor:Caroline Wang) (From:Xinhuanet)
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