China Certain of Last Eight Berth at Women's Volleyball Worlds

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, September 08, 2002

China Certain of Last Eight Berth at Women's Volleyball Worlds

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Two-time world champions and World Cup winners China have ensured themselves of aquarter-final place of the 2002 women's volleyball world championships after an easy straight sets victory over Central American side of Puerto Rico on Saturday at Stuttgart, Germany.

The Chinese won the match 25-13, 25-14, 25-14.

With the victory, China are ranked top of Pool F, temporarily, with four points from two consecutive wins. Whatever result of their final match on Sunday for the pool, against the other Asian side South Korea, the Chinese would reach their goal of the Last Eight, as one of the top two sides of Pool F.

The first-and second-ranked teams from the second round pools and the two best third-ranked teams go to the two-day quarter-finals starting next Wednesday. Pool F's top two sides would stayin Stuttgart for the quarter-finals. The other quarter-finals areset for Bremen.

"We played to our form today but we failed to take all the opportunities available to us on the court. This is what we'd to overcome in the games to come. We still have some potential to explore said Chinese captain Feng Kun after the victory.

The Chinese captain said her team was not affected by a controversial decision by the referee during Saturday's game. "Wepaid more attention on out own game rather than referees' decisions and you can win over the spectators only through better volleyball," she added.

"We did better today than yesterday (when they lost to South Korea 3-0). We played more effectively and even if we lose, we would make progress step by step," said Puerto Rican captain Xionmara Molero. "If we could win over the slow side of Bulgaria tomorrow, we stand a good chance for the quarter-finals," she added.

"The Puerto Rican team is young and inexperienced, especially in front of Asian teams. So we had no major problem for their blocking during the game, " said Chinese head coach Chen Zhonghe.

"We Chinese players are also very young. They could not make good use of good situation on the court and lost some of the scoring chances during the game," Chen said.

"South Korea is a very strong team, with less blocking but effective back-row defense and attacks," Chen said of their rivals."We had to be well prepared whenever we play them."

The cautious Chinese coach had warned that South Korea would pose a great threat to any of the teams in this year's championships, but he declined to make a prediction on future games.

"I have not considered much about other games rather than tomorrow's (against South Korea). As the situation changes and things happen fast, it's hard to predict anything here. But I could promise hard efforts from each of our players," he added.

"It's not easy for the young Puerto Ricans to play such strong teams as China and South Korea, who usually play fast games," saidPuerto Rican coach David Aleman.

"I wish to be well prepared for our game tomorrow against Bulgaria, which I think feature slow games," he said. "What happened today is already something past and we had to look forward to the future.

"We'd worked very hard for the world championships and all our efforts paid off here," he added.

The Puerto Rican coach also thanked for the strong support by apartisan crowd, consisted mainly of US soldiers stationed in Germany.

Chinese Yang Hao and Zhao Ruirui and Puerto Rico's Karina Ocasio tied as the game's top scorers, with 10 points each.

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