MATCH INFO

Tokyo, Japan, December 2, 2011 - Cuba managed to pull out a tough five-set win against China on Friday to start the fourth and final round of the 2011 FIVB Men’s World Cup at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.

Cuba coach Orlando Samuells Blackwood: It’s true we won, but I’m not satisfied with the quality of the match. I’m always happy to win, but today we lacked aggression and we didn’t have many successful blocks. We lacked the passion that we need to do our best.

Looking ahead to tomorrow versus the USA: I do feel we have to play better than today, especially in terms of defense and blocking. We have to be stronger. In order to do that we’d like to analyze today’s match as best we can and try to be ready for tomorrow.

On Leon and Hernandez: Number 1 (Leon) and number 19 (Hernandez) were really strong attacking tonight. It’s because of them that we were able to win many points. In terms of our middle players we’re still in the middle of some experiments.

Cuba captain Wilfredo Leon Venero: Today’s match was a very tense one. Our first set was good, but we ended up playing five sets. For tomorrow we’d like to address some problems we saw today and try to do our best.

On facing the USA tomorrow: I feel we have to be very tough and strong for tomorrow’s match and we’d certainly like to win that one.

On being the youngest captain, and his performance today: I’m aware I’m the youngest captain of all teams here, but I don’t feel particularly stressed [because of that]. As for today’s performance, I feel less errors are more important than getting more points.

Cuba player Fernando Hernandez Ramos: There were many tense moments tonight. We planned to win 3-1 or 3-0 but the result was not like that. We won, but are not satisfied with today’s game.

On his performance and difficulty early on in the match: I suppose the Chinese team analyzed my game well. Then I played a little more aggressively and got 27 points. But I still put importance on the team rather than my individual performance.

China coach Zhou Jianan: I feel sorry we couldn’t win the match tonight. We had many opportunitiesm but we ended up losing. Technically, there were many errors on our part, so we’d like to learn as much as we can from that moving forward. It was a good opportunity to play a strong team like Cuba and we hope we can come away stronger from it. We have two games left and we would like to do our best.

China captain Cui Jianjun: Today’s match was a very competitive one. We’re very sorry that we weren’t able to take away a win versus Cuba.

China player Zhong Weijun: I feel very bad about today’s loss. I was feeling good today, but we’re sorry to have lost the match in the end.