China defeats Japan by 3-1 in a FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament match
The Tokyo Metropolitan Gym saw the home team of Japan compete with their Chinese rivals on the fourth day of FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament that is being staged in the capital of Japan.
The resulting contest went on to four exciting sets at the end of which the guests emerged as the victors.
The first set was taken by the Chinese by a comfortable lead but they lost the second one to the home team in a tough fight.
However, the Chinese rebounded in the third and went on to win the fourth one as well while the score board showed the following final set scores: 25-19, 25-27, 25-18 and 25-18.
The Chinese coach Zhou Jianan shared his joy at the win over the home team in the following manner, “I'm happy with the performance of our players. Our psychological and technical performance was much better than in our loss to Serbia yesterday. The team
recovered well from that. We were mentally strong today. I believe this victory will be an asset for our players going far into the future.”
On the other hand, the Japanese coach, Tatsuya Ueta, commented on the loss in the following words, “We could not get our fast break attack going. Tatsuya Fukuzawa did not play well today. Our combination passed did not function and this affected his play.”
Chen Ping was able to lead the Chinese and become the top scorer of the match after adding 18 points to his side of the score board. Ping was helped by Zhang Chen who contributed 17 points of his own. On the other hand, the highest scorer from the Japanese
side was Kunihiro Shimizu with 16 points.
The Chinese pushed ahead with a lead of 5-2 at the start of the opening set. Japan was able to close in the gap at 19-15 but they could not overtake their opponents as the Chinese bagged the frame at 25-19. The second set saw both the teams keep the score
close with the match reaching ties at 7-7, 21-21 and 24-24 but the home team finally bagged the frame 27-25.
However, the Chinese set the pace in the third set that took them all the way to a fourth set win as well, both at 25-18.
The match has put the tournament record of both the teams to show 2-2.
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