China rallies past US at World GP Hong Kong leg
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-17 23:29

Defending champion China twice rallied from one set down to beat the United States 3-2 for its second straight victory at the Hong Kong leg of the 2004 World Grand Prix women's volleyball tournament.

Following Friday's 3-0 victory over Thailand, the World Cup title-holder revenged its defeat to the Americans at the Swiss International Tournament in June with the 20-25, 28-26, 16-25, 25-20 and 15-9 win.

Zhang Ping in red spikes the ball over Tailand blockers at the 2004 World Grand Prix women's volleyball tournament opening in Hongkong Friday July 16, 2004. [Xinhua]

The two traditional volleyball powerhouses fought to a 5-5 tie in the tie-breaker before China took the lead for good with a 4-0 run and never looked back.

"Both teams played very well today," said China head coach ChenZhonghe. "We did not panic when we were 2-1 down, and played better and better in the fourth set and the tie-breaker."

"We were disappointed that we lost, but we did a lot of good things out there," said the American captain Tara Cross-Battle.

"We did not do as well in blocking as we did (in our last meeting) in Switzerland," she added.

The Untied States reaped seven points from blocking, compared with nine of China.

Yang Hao converted 19 of her 42 killing chances to lead five Chinese players scoring in double digits.

Logan Tom had a game-high 30 points and Prikeba Phipps added 22for the United States, but they were the only Americans scoring more than 10 points.

China was on the edge of trailing 2-0 as the United States overtook the lead 26-25 in the second set on back of a 4-1 run. Roared on by more than 9,000 Hong Kong fans, the Chinese women fought back to run off three points in a row to level one set backat 28-26.

The United States pulled away from a 17-13 advantage to take the third set and went on to build a 5-1 lead in the fourth. Chencalled a time-up and China came back to tie it at 5-all before taking the fourth set at 25-20, forcing the tie-breaker.

Earlier on Saturday, Italy beat Thailand 3-1.

The four-team round-robin tournament enters the last day on Sunday with China playing Italy and the United States taking on Thailand.

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