China Sure of Quarter-final Berth at Women's Volleyball World Championships

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

China Sure of Quarter-final Berth at Women's Volleyball World Championships

China beat Puerto Rico in straight set Saturday at Stuttgart, Germany to ensure a quarter-final berth at the 2002 women's volleyball world championships.

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China beat Puerto Rico in straight set Saturday at Stuttgart, Germany to ensure a quarter-final berth at the 2002 women's volleyball world championships.

The Chinese powered their way to a 25-13, 25-14, 25-14 victory in a bit more than one hour.

In front of an audience of 5,500 spectators, China outplayed Puerto Rico in the second round Pool F clash in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer Halle here. Only in some parts of the match, the Caribbean team was able to keep up with the double world champion.

China started the first set with powerful jump serves and attacks, which caused many reception faults and great difficultiesfor the Puerto Rican defense.

The Asian team took a comfortable 15-4 lead. David Alemn's time-outs and a double substitution, Tatiana Encarnacion for Xiomara Molero and Dolly Melendez for Karina Ocasio, did not show any effect.

Only after the substitutes had left the court again, some uncertainties occurred at the Chinese side and Puerto Rico could score three points in a row to 11-17. But China immediately came back and won the set 25-13.

At the beginning of the second set no teams could score a lot of points in a row. Puerto Rico was able to keep up with the opponent at 5-6. After two reception faults and a net fault of the Caribbean team, China took over the lead again.

The Puerto Rican coach repeated his substitutions of the first set at 9-15. The team could stay in most of the rallies, but China continued to make the big points and won the set with 25-14.

Although the Chinese coach Zhonghe Chen left some of the players of his starting six on the bench at the beginning of the third set, China still was the better team at 16-9. The audience of almost 6,000 spectators tried their best to support the Caribbean outsider and enthusiastically celebrated every point they scored. But this did not really help them to get back into the match. China made the last point and took the second win in the second round 25-14 and is almost sure of a place in the quarterfinal.

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