"Bird" carries China over Germany in women volleyball World GP

Wang Lina had 12 smashes and a block to help China beat Germany 25-19, 25-22 and 25-15 Friday evening in the Chinese Taipei leg of the 2004 World Grand Prix women's volleyball tournament in Miaoli, a county about 100 kilometers south of Taipei.

Nicknamed "Bird" by her teammates, Wang hammered the German women time and again in the third set to secure the last set and an opening victory for the defending Grand Prix champions.

Zhang Yuehong came from the bench to convert seven kills in 13 tries to add seven points for China.

"Wang and Zhang are in good shape," said China head coach Chen Zhonghe. "They played a great game today."

The Chinese women, also reigning World Cup winners, started strongly as they raced to 5-1 and 11-5 leads in the first set before two consecutive spikes from Chinese captain and setter Feng Kun enlarged it to 15-6.

Germany steadily pulled at 20-18, but China secured the opener with a 5-1 run from then on.

Germany fought back from a 6-3 deficit in the second set to overtake a 9-7 lead as China struggled with their receiving and ace spiker Yang Hao wasted consecutive killing chances.

Then the head coach replaced Yang with Zhang Yuehong, who paid back with several solid kills to drive China ahead again at 12-9.

Germany managed to tie it at 19-all and stayed within 24-22, but a serving mistake surrendered the set to China.

The third set was just "show time" of Wang Li'na.

Despite the victory, Chen was not satisfied with his team's overall performance.

"Both teams did not play to their best form today," Chen told reporters at the press conference. "We only displayed 70 - 80 percent of our ability."

"Our opponents made more mistakes than we did," Chen added.

Twelve teams are competing in the first-round preliminaries of the 2004 World Grand Prix, vying for six spots in the finals to be held in Italy. The teams were divided into three groups, with two other groups playing in Bangkok of Thailand and Kawasaki of Japan.