The Chinese men’s team went 2-1 to open up World League play, with the team’s first foreign coach, Raul Lozano, happy with the team’s performance.
The team started their week with a strong Turkish squad. The Chinese men were not able to hold off Turkey in a five-set battle 3-2, (25-22, 25-20, 21-25, 24-26, 15-12). China went down early in the match 0-2 but fought back to tie things up and send the match to a fifth and deciding set. Despite leading the match score with 32 points, Chuan Jiang’s performance was not enough to propel the team to the first-day victory.
In another stellar performance, Jiang added another 20 points for the Chinese men against the Netherlands. China took four sets to take down the Dutch side 3-1, (29-27, 23-25, 25-22, 25-23).
In their final match of the week, China ran through Egypt 3-0, (25-18, 25-20, 25-22). Jiang added another 13 points to his tally for the week, while Binglong Zhang added another 11.
“We’re happy about the win. Now we finished stage one with two victories. I hope we’ll win much more games in the other stages,” said Lozano.
Up next, the Chinese team will travel to Helsinki, Finland to take on Australia, Finland and Slovakia (in that order) in the second week of the World League.
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