China sweeps Puerto Rico on first day of FIVB Men’s World Olympic Qualifying Tournament
The Chinese men’s volleyball team earned themselves a victory on June 1, Friday by making a clean sweep over their opponents from Puerto Rico while playing a match on the opening day of the FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
The opening day matches of the tournament were being staged in the capital of Japan with the Tokyo Metropolitan Gym acting as the host.
Only the first set of the match was competitive as the Puerto Ricans did not provide much of a challenge to their Chinese counter parts in the second as well as the third sets. As a result, the Chinese bagged three back to back sets at the following final
set scores: 25-23, 25-19 and 25-17.
Zhou Jianan, who is the coach of the Chinese squad, shared his happiness on the victory by making the following comments at the press conference after the match, “I'm very happy to win the first match. I was prepared for the worst because the players didn't
seem relaxed. The team played their game despite the pressure...We have to focus on the roughness of our attacks and limiting errors.”
On the other hand, Carlos Cardona, the Puerto Rican coach expressed himself by making the following statements, “Puerto Rico did not play well today. We made too many errors. Some of our players were not in good condition as they have not recovered from
jet lag. We hope to play better tomorrow.”
The player who was able to stand out as the top scorer of the competition belonged to the winning team as Zhang Chen earned China a total of 13 points. Chen was supported by his teammate Chen Ping who added 10 of his own.
China came out leading in the first set at 5-4 and still had control till 10-7. Puerto Rico finally managed a tie at 12-12 and the set again got even at 22-22 but the Chinese bagged it at 25-23. The second and the third sets progressed similar to each other
with the Chinese in the lead and the Puerto Ricans trailing behind all the way till 25-19 and 25-17 respectively.
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