Photos courtesy of China Volleyball Association
Bngkok, Thailand, December 19, 2020 – Tianjin underlined their supremacy over the Chinese Women’s Volleyball League 2020-2021 season in Jiangmen after pulling off an impressive win over closest rivals Jiangsu 2-1 in the best-of-three finals, xinhuanet.com reported on Saturday.
With the dramatic 3-1 (25-16 23-25 25-21 25-21) win in their third encounter against Jiangsu on Friday, Tianjin eventually captured the crown, their 13th title in the China’s top-level professional league.
Jiangsu got off to a brilliant start in the best-of-three finals series following their exceptional 3-1 (25-18 30-28 23-25 25-19) in their opening clash on Wednesday, but the injury of key player Diao Linyu in their second meet on Thursday diminished the team’s strength as they went down to Tianjin 1-3 (25-23 19-25 13-25 18-25).
Jiangsu still faced the similar situation in their third match against Tianjin on Friday. Because of Diao’s injury and there was no other setter to substitute, Jiangsu’s head coach Cai Bin had to move Gong Xiangyu, who hadn’t played as a setter for seven years, to that position.
The provisional setter turned out to be the weak point of Jiangsu. However, the team played tough and won the second set, but the third set turned sour for Jiangsu as star spiker Zhang Changning also got injured.
Although Zhang insisted to get back on court and scored a game-high 30 points, she still couldn’t save the day for her team.
Tianjin demonstrated more powerful spikes and blocks. Li Yingying shared a game-high 30 points, with Zhu Ting donating 26 points.
“To be honest, it really surprised me that we could bring one set back in today’s game. Although we failed at the end, we had already showed our strong will to fight,” said Zhang Changning.”
Every player has given her best and has overcome many difficulties during this 40-day tournament. From this point of view, everyone is winner,” said Zhu Ting, Tianjin’s spiker and the captain of Chinese national team.
Tianjing captured the title, while Jiangsu and Shanghai clinched silver and bronze medals respectively.
Champions – Tianjin
Second place – Jiangsu
Third place – Shanghai
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