FIVB Women's World Championship round two recap: Pool E part two
The Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Women's Volleyball World Championship began its second round of play this weekend. Two pools of eight teams began round robin play on Saturday. They’ll
break on Monday before continuing matches on Tuesday.
Serbia vs China Pool E
China is one of the best teams in the world, but had a terrible first round that saw them squeak into the second round. They beat a very good Japanese team in their first second round game, but fell to
Serbia 3-1 (21-25, 25-20, 25-22, 25-22) on Sunday. China is now 1-4, and Serbia 3-2. The loss means that China cannot finish the tournament in one of the top four positions.
Jovana Brakocevic led Serbia with 19 points and Wang Yimei led China with 19. Yimei is China’s top scorer in the tournament so far.
China played well to start the match, winning the first set in, but Serbia battled back in the second. They matched China point for point until a seven-point run put Serbia up 14-9. From that point on
China was unable to do much to prevent a Serbian victory.
“We started out very well today,” said Zhou Suhong of China. “We won the first set, but after that we blew quite a few chances to win points. We made many mistakes and couldn't fight through for the win.”
China will play Poland on Tuesday and Serbia will play Russia.
Japan vs Turkey Pool E
Japan suffered their first loss of the tournament against China on Saturday, but were quick to respond with a 3-1 (25-19, 23-25, 25-19, 25-13) victory over Turkey. Turkey was coming off a victory against
Serbia, but couldn’t continue that success against Japan.
Yukiko Ebata, who was celebrating her 21st birthday Sunday, led Japan in scoring with 24 points, while Esra Gumus led Turkey with 19. Neslihan Darnel of Turkey is the tournament’s top scorer,
but didn’t lead her team in scoring for the first time in this match, she had 14 points.
“It was an important match for us,” said Japan’s coach, Masayosi Manabe. “The players concentrated very well and put on a good performance. I think they did well against Neslihan Darnel. She can attack
from the left, from the right, from the back – everything about her is good, and she spikes in between blocks. She has great technique in addition to her power. We tried to block her and tried to receive the ball as a team.”
Japan will play Korea on Tuesday, and Turkey will play Peru.
Tags: