China Crush Japan at World Women's Volleyball GPLocal favorites China lived up to expectations by outclassing their arch-rivals Japan 3-0 in Macao Friday on the opening day of the 2000 World Women's Volleyball Grand Prix Macao Leg."We know the Japanese very well, and our players performed very well today," said Chinese Head Coach Hu Jin. "China played better than us today," the Japanese Head Coach Yoshida Nobuyuki said. China, who beat Japan four matches in a row a week ago in Fujian province, China, totally controlled the first set with their superiority on the net and solid defence. They took the set by a big margin of 25-14. After levelling at eight all in the second, Asian champions China stormed back by powerful offence and blocks, winning the set at 25-20. But the Japanese spikers, who finished third in Asian championship last year in Hong Kong, came back to take the lead for the first time in the match at 7-4 in the third set mainly due to the errors from the Chinese and their own attacks. With the ability of defense and block and quick changes in tactics, the Chinese dominated the following set, sealing the match by winning 25-16. In another match on Friday, Brazil did not meet much resistance from the Americans, winning in consecutive sets 25-23, 25-16, 25-15. There are six legs in this year's 1.04 million-U.S.-dollar tournament with world top eight women's teams involved. Apart from the above four teams, Cuba, Russia, South Korea and Italy are competing simultaneously in Yala, Thailand. The eight teams then will be re-grouped and contest in Chinese Taipei, Malaysia, China, and the Philippines respectively in the following two weekends. Unlike the previous seven tournaments, all eight teams will join together to vie for the title at this year's Grand Prix finals in Manila at the end of the month. |
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