China recovered from losing the first two sets to edge out embattled Germany in hard-fought five-set thriller in their first Week 2 clash of the 2021 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Italy on Monday.
Despite fielding the second-string squad to the early stage of the top-tier competition, China remained strong with the likes of Zhang Changning and Liu Xiaotong, both of them joined the Rio Games-gold winning team.
Going down in the first two sets 20-25, 19-25, China regained their composure and hit back bravely. Still, Germany played more consistently to take a commanding 24-21 lead in the third set, needing only one more point to wrap up the match.
However, China gradually pulled their game together and fought back exceptionally well to catch the rivals at 24-all and stormed on to win the hotly-contested set 27-25.
The third-set triumph boosted their confidence and high hopes of a successful comeback in the following sets. China turned things around and cruised comfortably to capture the fourth set 25-21 and tie-breaker 15-9 for the eventual win in the match.
Zhang Changning scored a match-high 23 points including 16 attacks and 2 aces for China, while Yang Hanyu and Li Yao added 14 and 11 points respectively. Hanna Orthmann also proved a dominant force of Germany to grab 23 points including 18 attacks and 2 blocks.
China’s Yao Di said: “I think that today’s match was good, but there were some things we could do better. The most important for this victory was that we defended well and that gave us many chances to attack. We also blocked very well.”
Germany’s Hanna Orthmann said: “In the first two sets we were controlling the game, we played very well in block-defence. In the third set we started to lose this control and China got back, they are a strong team. We didn’t manage to gain this control again and I think it was our problem. In the end it was not China playing very differently, it was our mistakes. We were not so aggressive any more.”
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