China Gets Off to Winning Start at Universiade VolleyballChina opened their campaign in style, beating Rwanda in straight sets in the men's volleyball competitions at the 21st World University Games which started Wednesday.Neither could take more than a two-point lead in the beginning of the first set. Drawing at 7-all, the host team, inspired by veteran setter Wang Ye and new talent Hu Song, broke the deadlock and sprinted to a 10-7 lead and never gave up their lead in the set, winning at 25-12. With the help of two active national spikers and four former national spikers, the Chinese maintained the lead in the following two sets with their hard hitting and powerful serves, finishing the match with easy scores of 25-13, 25-14. The team of Rwanda is composed of the players from National University of Rwanda, the only national university of the country. The Chinese men's spikers is set to do their best to enter the top eight in the volleyball competition, said Chinese head coach Yang Liqun. The best result that the Chinese men's volleyballers obtained is runners-up in 1987 Universiade. Yang said:"The other two teams in our group are not as strong as I expected, so we are feeling more confident to carry out our target to enter the top eight." In another match of the group, Latvia met strong resistance from Australia, winning with scores of 25-21, 27-25 and 28-26. 27 men's teams and 15 women's teams have turned out to participate in the games. The volleyball competition will finish on August 30. |
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