China wrapped up its Beilun Cup four-nation women's volleyball
tournament campaign on Friday with a five-set victory over
Cuba.
The Chinese team, who went down in five set to Cuba last week in
another international tournament also held in China, took sweet
revenge on their arch rivals by prevailing 25-18, 15-25, 18-25,
25-16, 15-11 in one hour 38 minutes.
China, who had earlier crushed the Dominican Republic and the
Netherlands in straight sets, kept a perfect sheet. Cuba was the
runner-up with a 2-1 win-loss record. The Dominican Republic (1-2)
was third and the Netherlands (0-3) finished fourth.
Rolled on by sizzling spikes from Sun Xiaoqing and Li Juan, a
fired-up China dominated the first set, but the Cubans were
unstoppable in the following two sets as their powerful serving
held China at bay.
Head coach Chen Zhonghe made a change to the Chinese line-up at
the start of the fourth set, replacing Sun with Yang Hao. The
change turned out effective as China built up a fluid attacking
rhythm which Brazil could not stem. On their second set point at
24-16, Zhou Suhong made no mistake with a kill to tie the score
2-2.
Teams traded points in the opening stages of the decider. When
both sides were locked at 5-5, China won five points successively
to surge ahead. Leading at 14-8, however, China could only clinch
the winner on its fourth match point when Ramirez Echevarria Daimi'
serve fell into the net.
Li Juan top scored for China with 16 points, from 13 spikes and
three blocks. Captain Zhou Suhong added 12 points and Sun Xiaoqing
had 7 points.
Cuba's leading scorer was Yumilka Ruiz Luaces, who smashed 17
kills in her 18-point haul.
After losing their first two games to Cuba and China, the
Dominicans regained a bit of confidence with a 25-21, 20-25, 22-25,
25-17, 17-15 victory over the Netherlands in the day's other
game.
(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2007)