China women spikers win 8th straight

CHINA eased past Kenya 3-0 yesterday to extend its winning streak to eight matches at the Women’s Volleyball World Cup in Sapporo, Japan.

With the 25-12, 25-12, 25-14 victory, the Chinese women lead the standings with a perfect 8-0 win-loss record in the 12-team round-robin tournament.

While head coach Lang Ping rested several regular starters, including Zhu Ting, Yuan Xinyue and Ding Xia, Gong Xiangyu led the Chinese scoring with 13 points and Li Yingying added 11.

“Today we gave some young players opportunities to play, I think it’s important for them to get some experience at this level of competition,” said Lang. “It took them a couple of sets to find the rhythm and I think they have a lot to learn from the veteran players.”

Kim Hee-jin scored 21 points and Kim Yeon-koung added 19 to lift South Korea to a 25-21, 25-18, 15-25, 25-23 victory over a Serbia team, which was missing Tijana Boskovic, Brankica Mihajlovic and Milena Rasic.

“It was hard for us to stop their attackers, as expected, but in some moments we had two or three good balls that made the difference, even if our blocking was not that good,” South Korea head coach Stefano Lavarini said.

“I’m really happy that the players after a bad third set, when they switched off as happens sometimes, had the strength and the will to come back and win an important match for us.”

Serbia coach Aleksandar Vladisavljev praised his opponents’ performance.

“South Korea played better today and deserved to win. In the first two sets, we were totally absent,” he noted. “In the third set, we played much better, but in the fourth their experience and the quality of Kim (Hee-jin) decided the set and the match. Now, we have three matches left and I hope we will play better.”

Cameroon came close to getting its first victory at the tournament after winning the first two sets, only to find Argentina fight back to take the next three for a come-from-behind 21-25, 20-25, 25-20, 25-20, 15-12 triumph.

Lucia Fresco led Argentina with 32 points.

“Today was very difficult. Cameroon’s defense was very strong, but the fact that we could turn it around after losing two sets is good as it gave the team confidence,” Argentina captain Julieta Constanza Lazcano said.

The United States and Russia both won. Inspired by Andrea Drews’ 23-point performance, the Americans beat the Dominican Republic 25-22, 25-23, 25-9 while Russia overcame the Netherlands 26-24, 25-18, 25-20.

Also, Brazil swept Japan 25-14, 25-21, 25-23 for its fifth win in eight tries.

The 12 teams competing will now have two days’ rest with the action to resume on Friday.

(Xinhua)