Recap of China vs. Brazil women final at 2012 Brasilia Open – Volleyball news
The first event of 2012 SWATCH FIVB World Tour completed its run from April 15-20 in Brazilian capital Brasilia, while the Chinese duo of Chen Xue and Zhang Xi came on top. The duo performed amazingly well throughout the Brasilia Open women’s beach volleyball
tournament and left everyone behind in the game.
China’s third-seeded Xue/Zhang, the bronze medalists at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, were challenged by local pairing of Maria Antonelli and Talita Antunes in the final showdown of the tournament on Friday. The home duo was equipped with the emotional support
of great many fans but the Chinese pair proved to be the best and defeated hosts in front of the local fans.
The visiting team clean-swept home side and settled for 2-0 (21-17, 21-15) victory in less than forty minutes.
The significant final match was opened on a high note. Players on both sides of the net supplied plenty of power to the ball to earn quick points. For a first few minutes, the score progressed with incredibly close gap. The scoreboard showed 6 ties before
the first technical timeout. However, the Chinese pair soon grasped the game plan of opponents and hit from different angles. Their strategy perfectly worked out, while Talita/Antonelli fell down. The Brazilian duo could not help the situation and constantly
trailed behind.
In the meanwhile, Xue/Zhang played fast and added quick points to cover the length of first stanza. With their convincing and forceful play, they managed to secure the opening set with good four-point margin, 21-17.
The loss of opening set filled the home duo with rage and anger. They hit back aggressively and added three points in row to pick up an early lead. Nonetheless, the Chinese tandem was aware of the hostile response of hosts in second set. They played sensibly
and successfully chased the score in next few minutes. The second set saw first tie of scores at 9-all, which was created by Xue/Zhang.
From that point onward, Chinese duo hit non-stoppable shots and regained the better status. On contrary, Brazilians failed to sustain the pressure and dropped second set after scoring only 15 points. Chinese duo cruised past to second set win and announced
gold medal victory.
Zhang looked totally overjoyed with the sense of accomplishment at the post-match award ceremony. She expressed her views in the following manner, “We played very well in Brazil and I think training with other world tour teams in Los Angeles before coming
here helped us tremendously be ready for the season-opener.”
Furthermore, the Chinese superstar turned 27 on Saturday and took the gold-medal victory as a present. She said, “This gold medal is a great birthday present for me and for Chen and I it gives us a lot of added confidence knowing the next three FIVB SWATCH
World Tour events will be in China. We finished seventh both of the last two years we played here so this is a huge improvement. We kept our concentration the entire gold medal match.”
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