China Ease Past South Korea, Netherlands Stuns Italy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, July 23, 2003

China Ease Past South Korea, Netherlands Stuns Italy

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China posted an extraordinary 3-0 victory over South Korea while the Netherlands pulled off a surprise win over hosts and world champions Italy in a five-set thriller on Tuesday in Matera at the FIVB World Grand Prix.

China and South Korea fought a 29-27 battle royal in their opening set, before South Korea crumbled in their second, scoring a mere eight points before going down courageously in the third topresent China with their second straight win.

In other late action, the Netherlands pulled off the surprise of the day when they mowed down Italy in a seesaw match that stretched to the tiebreaker and finished 3-2 (16-25, 25-20, 27-25,15-25, 15-8) in favor for the Dutch.

Italy's Valentina Fiorin amassed 17 points as match top scorer,with Elles Leferink putting on 15 points for the Netherlands. Italy next faces Cuba, then Japan and finally the United States inthis round.

Asian powerhouse China take on Thailand on Wednesday before twotough matches with natural adversaries Brazil and Russia.

Earlier, Brazil and the United States both scored their second consecutive wins while Russia and Germany got back into the act ofthis, the most important annual competition in women's volleyball,reversing losing trends on Monday.

Brazil signaled their seriousness in heading for the 2003 titlewith a comfortable straight sets win over Canada while Germany, despite a brief third set lapse of concentration, plowed through the young Cuban side to go 3-1 up on this, the second day of play. ��

Earlier United States beat Japan in a tight tiebreaker that at times had the Americans on the run, while Russia reversed their losing trend with an easy win over Thailand in straight sets. Brazil hardly seemed troubled in their contest with Canada, emerging 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-20) winners, which gave coach MarcoMotta more confidence after his claim on Monday that the green-and-golds had come intent on winning the title.

Germany looked strong against a very youthful Cuban side and with their youngest player just 16-years old, to take the 3-1 (25-16, 25-14, 22-25, 25-16) victory and give themselves a 1-1 win loss ratio to get back in the tournament.

Germany's captain the powerful and lofty Angelina Grn hammered home 16 spikes and scoring three block points to be top scorer for the match. Indira Mastro was top scorer for Cuba with 15 points.

Brazil tops pool B with equal wins to China, but ahead on a superior points ratio, while United States and Netherlands now both have two wins to take the top two slots on Group A.

Matches continue through Friday in the preliminaries for this round-robin format, with the top six of the 12 teams then advancing to the final round.

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