Jiangmen, China, July 2, 2024 – Mighty China showed no mercy to Kazakhstan to demolish the smaller-built opponents in a completely one-sided affair 25-8, 25-8, 25-11 for their first win in the 22nd Asian Women’s U20 Volleyball Championship at the Jiangmen Sports Center Gymnasium here on Tuesday.
China, current world champions and silver medallists at the previous edition in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan two years ago, fielded a tall and towering roster, whose height average is 186cm against Kazakhstan’s 177cm, while Kazakhstan, which produced comeback 3-2 win against Australia the previous day, were led by hard-hitting Sofiya Gorbacheva.
China took an initial 6-4 lead before extending it to 16-7 in the opening set, making use of their powerful attackers including opposite and skipper Wang Yindi, middle blocker Shan Linqian and outside hitter Li Chenxuan to work on the offensive system. Kazakhstan responded with fine attacks from Gorbacheva and Ademi Tazhigul, but their attempts could not do that much as China powered on to take the easy set 25-8.
In the second set, China continued their domination, winning a spectacular series of eight consecutive points, courtesy of powerful attacks from outside hitter Kuo Xiangling and Shan Lingqian to pile a 8-0 lead. Kazakhstan pulled their game together, aiming to make amends for the first-set loss. Still, China played impeccable defence, allowing Kazakhstan attacking difficulties.
The host side widened it to 14-2 and shuffled their lineup by replacing opposite Wang Yindi and setter Zhu Hangting with the 198cm-tall Duan Mengke and another setter Li Yuening. However, Kazakhstan had their moments of gaining some points but after 18-5, it was all about the home team again. China maintained their consistency and resilience to reach the set point 24-8 before a spike from Amina Kyrykbayeva went wide, finishing the set off at a convincing 25-8 China’s way.
Conceding two sets in a row, Kazakhstan fought back hard in the third set, but still found China too strong. As the visitors trailed far behind 20-10, the host side cruised on, allowing Kazakhstan only one more point from a service error of Guo Weilin to win the set 25-11 and match.
The China’s dominance was visible in the match stats as the winners dominated in all elements – in kills (44 to 14), blocks (7 to 1), aces (6 to 1) aside from benefitting from more opponent error (18 to 11).
China will next take on Australia on Wednesday, the last day of the pool round-robin preliminaries.
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