Pasig City, Philippines, August 22, 2022 – China are looking strong in their bid to retain the title at the 2022 AVC Cup for Women, as they defeated Vietnam in the decider, 3-2 (25-12, 25-6, 29-31, 21-25,15-12) in Pool A of the preliminary round on Monday afternoon at the PhilSports Arena.
China opposite Zhou Yetong played consistently, scoring 27 points (23 attacks and 4 blocks). Zhuang Yushan added another 21 points in the victory.
Setter Sun Haiping ran a rather straightforward offense, capitalizing on the wing attack. Zhou Yetong, Zhuang Yushan and Wu Mengjie were easy and reliable options on offense.
Meanwhile, Vietnam could not seem to establish their tempo in both defense and offense. They seemed slow to react on their opponents’ moves, and they were unable to get their passing lanes as fluid as needed.
With this, China could afford time and space to line up their block formation. Their height advantage even helped them a great deal on the first line of defense.
Vietnam tried to play along their opponents in the third set, exchanging points with a strong opponent. They seemed to have found their rhythm In attack, and they even enforced stronger service to score off some aces. Vi Thi Nhu Quynh and captain Tran Thi Thanh Thuy engineered Vietnamese offense, picking up points. By the fourth set, China seemed to feel the fatigue set in, and was getting prone to more errors.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese seized the momentum to their favor. They set up their plays carefully, and executed the offense patiently to force the match to a decider. By the final set, China needed to call upon their reliable hitters to finally seal the win.
China captain Wang Yifan also played her part coming off the bench.
”Today was a good day to really play our substitutes. It was a good opportunity to learn from our opponents who are much more experience. There were some moments when they used a lot of tricks and techniques on us and those were sometimes difficult to deal with,” she said in review of China’s predicament in the five-set match.
China will play hosts Philippines on Tuesday, August 23 in the main event at 19:00. Vietnam will face Iran in an earlier match at 16:00. All times local.
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