2001 World Grand Champions Cup

Tournament Wrap - Men and Women

DAY 1

DAY 2

Saitama, Japan, 13 November, 2001 - Japan, China and Korea made Tuesday a Day of Asia as the trio pocketed as many stunning victories on the opening day of the 2001 World Grand Champions Cup.

It was the wild card Korea that was the star team of the day, as it produced the biggest upset by crushing the title favorite United States 3-1 at the opening match.

The promising sensation China took its revenge of the reigning champion Russia 3-1 in the following match, while Japan wrapped up the first-day matches by embarrassing the South American champion Brazil in straight sets in the Saitama Super Arena.

Korea's head coach Kim Cheol-yong was overwhelmed with happiness by his team’s defeat of the 2001 World Grand Prix champion. "I'm very happy to win the first match of this tournament. I formed the team only two weeks before and enrolled many young players.  I believe my players have gained confidence from this win," Kim said.

It was from the very beginning of the match that Korea set the pace that steered then to the 3-1 (25-18, 25-21, 19-25, 25-23) win.    

The Koreans managed to turn a series of errors of its rival into winning points as it scored 33 points on errors, compared to 17 from the U.S..

 "I'm proud of competing in the tournament as wild card," captain Choi Kwang-hee said.  "The whole team was confident that we could win the match, and it worked well."

American head coach, Japanese Yoshida Toshiaki, said his squad lacked their normal cohesiveness.

"Some of my players only joined the team on November 6 and 7, and one came straight back from the Italian league. We didn't have enough time to train together.

"We missed some big points down the stretch, and that was the worst thing in a match. The Korean team played really well," he added.

"Tomorrow we'll face another strong team in China. It will be very hard to win," Toshiaki said.

In the second match, China faced the imposing sight of Artamonova, Godina and 24-year-old 201cm Ekaterina Gomova - the tallest front line in the world of women’s volleyball averaging 196cm.

But even facing this Russian wall – and a squad with 186 world and Olympic Games match appearances under its belt, the fearless Chinese, that have not one world championship or Olympic Games appearance in its squad, played with the heart of a lion and way above their years to defeat the European Champions in one of the best matches of the year 3-1 (33-35, 25-21, 25-19, 27-25).

Russia, the Olympic silver medallist in Sydney last year, almost forced the match into a decisive fifth set as it rallied four points to tie it at 24-24 in the fourth.  But China maintained its composure to take the set, 27-25, and the game as consequence.

"We lost to Russia twice this year by 3-1 and 3-0 respectively, so it's so nice to beat them this time," said Chinese head coach Chen Zhonghe.

"My players did well on creating pressure on attack though we are much smaller than them. This is the reason why we could make a great win today," Chen added.

Russia's head coach Nikolai Karpol said he didn't know what happened on the attacks, which helped Russia take the first set.

"We didn't play well after the first set, and I cannot say what the problem is. We'll find out the reason afterwards," he said.

Japan led all the way from the start to the claim one of its biggest victories in the world level competitions when it beat-up Brazil completely on every aspect of the court.

Head coach Masahiro Yoshikawa said, "My team had one of the best games ever. The players had given their best and we got the key points on the right time, so we won the match."

Brazil's coach Marco Aurelio Motta described the loss as a disaster. "We didn't play as we usually do tonight as we missed a couple of servers and had a big problem on blocks. My players didn't play well.  They could not catch up with Japan's fast pace."

Neither team outside Asia could stand for another loss in the single round-robin tournament when the U.S. face China and Russia meets Brazil on Wednesday.  Japan will take on Korea in the evening. 

End

By Shan Lei, Xinhua News Agency

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"My players had a better game than that of yesterday, but we still didn't play in the best form," Russian head coach Nikolai Karpol said.

The Chinese team, which has a completely different squad from its Sydney Olympics team, showed it is better than the one that finished fifth in Sydney 2000.

Beating the Americans is a sweet revenge of the 3-1 loss China faced at September’s World Grand Prix final in Macau, China.

"We had some difficult times when we lost patience in attack. Players complained to each other on the court, and that cost us a lot.

“Fortunately we managed to calm down and got what we wanted," Chen said.

China was not intimated by America's attacking combination of Danielle Scott and Therese Crawford, clinching the critical third set 25-22 with a 6-0 scoring run after the two splitting the first two sets.

In the roller-coaster fourth set, the Chinese were down again before they popped up to maintain a 2-point lead at 21-19, which ensured them the best of the set and match.

"It's a tough match. Everything could happen when you had only two or three point lead down the stretch. My players didn't do quite well and they need time to learn how to cope with the hard time," Chen added.

The Russian victory gave them 1-1 record, the only team among the world's elite that stuck with the same squad as that of the Sydney Olympics. They hang on in the single round-robin tournament, while Brazil is now 0-2 and at the bottom of the standings.

In the do-or-die face-off, Russia could not get into the game until it was on the verge of the cliff.

The European champion squandered three chances to take the critical third set after 1-1. Tying it at 24-24, Flavia Carvalho put Brazil ahead with a serving point, and held onto the advantage to make it 2-1.

But Russia then found the rhythm, taking a quick win in the following set to level the match, and built up a 10-6 lead in the decisive fifth set.

The world tallest front-court line-up, 2.01-metre Ekaterina Gamova and 1.94-meter Elena Godina, stepped in to prove their strength with complete domination over the net to give Russia the victory.

"We had a new setter after the GP (Grand Prix). It takes time for my players to have more communication and better understandings with each other," Karpol said.

"After the third set, my players could not concentrate on the match and let it slide," said Brazil's head coach Marco Aurello Motta.

"We lost 8 points on service in the fourth set. Russia had better blocks after that and we just did not have the strikes we had earlier in the match."

The tournament will be moved to Fukuoka on 16 November where Russia takes on the U.S., Korea versus Brazil and Japan meets China.

End

By Shan Lei, Xinhua News Agency