Reigning Olympic champions China swept Russia to draw level in the standings stay within reach of the semifinals at the 2021 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Italy on Friday.
China overpowered Russia in convincing straight sets 25-18, 25-23, 25-16 to improve their win-loss record to 8-5 with 24 points to move to the 5th position of the 16-team standings. Russia also had 8 wins against 5 losses with 23 points to trail in 6th position overall.
Li Yingying chipped in with 19 points, with superstar Zhu Ting and Gong Xiangyu adding 15 and 13 respectively. Nataliya Goncharova led Russia with 14 points and Irina Voronkova grabbed 13.
Russia’s Anna Podkopaeva said at the virtual Mixed Zone: “My impressions from this game are good. The team of China will be our opponents in the group at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, so we will analyse this game deeply and learn the lesson from this match and our mistakes. We struggled in all elements – especially reception, block, attack.”
Li Yingying said: “Today we played much better. We worked and trained hard to improve our game. We were well-prepared for this match and we wanted to show our best. We performed very well in defence and block to especially stop their best player, Nataliya Goncharova.”
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