China rallies back to edge Germany in women's Volleyball Nations League

ARLINGTON, United States, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China rallied from two sets down to beat Germany 3-2 in the women's Volleyball Nations League (VNL) here on Saturday.

Dropping the first two sets 25-22 and 26-24, the Chinese women fought back to take the following two sets 25-21 and 25-17, forcing a tiebreaker where they came from 4-0 and 8-4 down to overtake the lead at 12-11. Germany beat off two match points to go up at 16-15, only to find Wu Mengjie land three kills in a row to seal the victory for China.

Zhuang Yushan notched 27 points for China, who has improved to an 8-3 record in the preliminaries with three straight wins in Arlington. Gong Xiangyu and Wu added 17 and 13 points respectively.

As regular starting middle blockers Wang Yuanyuan and Chen Houyu struggled with their attacking, Wan Ziyue and Wang Aoqian came from the bench to contribute seven and six points respectively to the hard-fought victory of China.

Germany produced 10 aces, compared to China's three, but gave away 33 points through errors.

Later on Saturday, the United States will take on Canada in Arlington.

Italy led the standings with 11 wins in 11 matches, followed by Brazil and Japan on 10 and nine respectively. A total of 18 teams are competing in the preliminaries in various venues with the top eight finishers to qualify for the Finals. ■