Brazil beat China 3-1 to retain women's volleyball title at World Military Games

Chinese volleyball players salute before the women's volleyball gold medal match against Brazil at the 7th CISM Military World Games in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, Oct. 22, 2019.(Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

WUHAN, Oct. 22 -- Defending champions Brazil overcame hosts China 3-1 here on Tuesday evening to retain the women's volleyball title at the 7th CISM World Military Games.

Ellen Braga scored 20 points and Amanda Juliana added 19 to help the Brazilian women, who had lost to China in straight sets on Thursday in the group stage, take the 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 25-23, 25-19) victory.

Wang Yunlu led China with 23 points and Li Yingying added 18, but not enough to save the Chinese side that committed 26 errors.

China head coach Wu Xiaojiang admitted his team was not able to respond quick and do well enough to deal with the change of Brazil's starting lineup.

"We were not fully prepared, we were not able to mark their main scorer," said Wu.

Brazil head coach Rafael Melo said he made the changes just because those new starters including Braga had been in better shape than the original ones.

"I put them on because they played better in this tournament," he said.

The two sides exchanged runs to tie it at 23-all in the first set. Then Liu Yanhan made a double hit before Sonaly Cidrao produced an ace to secure the opener for Brazil.

The Chinese women fought back strongly for a 24-22 lead in the second set. Braga had a kill to beat off one set point, only to find China convert the second through a team block.

The third set was also hotly contested and it was 24-23 in favor of Brazil when Liu made a serving error to surrender the set.

In the fourth, Brazil raced to a 14-8 lead and never looked back.

Earlier on Tuesday, the DPR Korea beat Germany 3-0 (25-17, 25-12, 25-9) to take the bronze medal.