News

Dalian, Northeast China, June 3, 2005 - The Chinese woman's Volleyball team claimed the title at the KunLun Cup China International Women's Volleyball Tournament on Friday with a hard-fought 3-1 (22-25, 26-24, 25-16, 25-20) win over Cuba in the final.

The victory in Dalian comes on the back of China’s defeat of their old rivals in an international tournament in Ningbo last week.

The Olympic champions struggled to find their form at the beginning and trailed for most of the first set before losing it by three points. The below-par Chinese continued to struggle in the second set until at 24-23 down, they suddenly went all-out to come back and win the set to tie the game up.

In the following two sets, the home side showed their quality and left Cuba no chance, sealing the third and the fourth set s easily.
Pic: Cuba’s Yumilka Ruiz and Z. Barros (No.18) attempt to block Zhou Suhong
Chinese coach Chen Zhonghe said after the match that Cuba played very well, especially in the first two sets. “Their effective blocks gave us plenty of difficulties in attack while we could not beat their spiking.”

Luis Calderon, the Cuba coach, said the Chinese defence was excellent. “We made quite a lot mistakes in receiving in the last two sets, but we did play a good match and can further improve ourselves.”

In the play off for third, the Netherlands squandered a 2-0 lead before holding off Japan 3-2. Manon Flier made the match-winning kill in the fifth set and the Netherlands, 14th in the world, upset the 7th-ranked Japanese 25-20, 25-18, 18-25, 21-25, 15-12 in one hour and 51 minutes.

Bulgaria beat Poland 3-1 (25-22, 25-19, 16-25, 25-20) to finish fifth.