MATCH INFO

Bahía Blanca, Argentina, August 21, 2011 - In a real battle, China defeated Russia in five sets (25-22, 17-25, 18-25, 25-20, 15-13) to nail the last spot for the next round towards the gold medal. The Asians prevailed powered by a good crowd at Osvaldo Casanova Hall, upgraded to 2-1 and earned the second place of Pool B, while Russia dropped to the third place and fell short in their goal to advance.

China shared the damage between Zhimin Leng and Zhejia Zhang, top scorers of the team with 17 points a piece. However, the highest count of the match belonged to Russia's Stanislav Masliev, with 25 kills.

The first set slipped away from Russian hands after a clear lead in both timeouts (8-3 and 16-12), built by the spikes of Masliev and Vladimir Manerov (5 points each in the set). In the final track, the Europeans failed by making mistakes and China took advantage by 25-22.

Russia bounced back fiercely and got the global lead by 2-1, with scores of 25-17 and 25-18. The Europeans always kept away their rivals, with good numbers in Masliev and the support of Pavel Pankov and Vladimir Chivel in order to close each set. China hung on with Leng, but wasn't enough to stay on top.

With the crowd completely excited about the high-display volleyball on both teams, China increased the energy and found some key blocks from Zhang (11 points at the net) to lower the hopes of the Russian. After a second timeout by 16-12, China lost spiker Zhenhui Liang due to an ankle injury, but nevertheless rolled on to a 25-20 score by forcing a bad reception from Russia.

The final set was outstanding. After the Chinese team protested some calls from the referees, Russia led at 8-4 when the teams changed sides, but after that Zhang showed up again and Russia lost the pulse. Masliev spiked long and China netted the match by a close 15-13.