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OSAKA, Japan, August 9, 2009 - Korea held off
Puerto Rico and ended a run of five straight
defeats recording its first win in the 2009
World Grand Prix at Osaka Municipal Central
Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon.
The Koreans missed five match points in the
third set but finally beat Puerto Rico 3-2 on
their seventh match point, a right-wing spike
from southpaw La Hea-Won.
Korea's winning score was 25-18, 25-18, 24-26,
22-25, 15-13, improving their win-loss record to
1-5. Puerto Rico, stretched to five sets in
three of six matches thus far, dropped also to
1-5.
Korean Kim Yeon-Kuong led all scorers with 33
points while Puerto Ricans Sarai Alvarez and
Aurea Cruz recorded 22 and 19 points
respectively.
In Miao Li, Netherlands recorded its sixth
consecutive victory by downing Dominican
Republic (1-5) in straight sets by score of
25-19, 25-15, 25-18 in 67 minutes. The winners
notched 11 service aces.
Manon Filer led Netherlands with 12 points and
Francien Huurrman contributed nine tallies to
the victory. Bethania de la Cruz and Milagros
Cabral had 11 and 10 points respectively in the
loss.
Also in Miao Li, Germany (3-2) defeated USA
(2-3) in the last match of Sunday. The score was
25-22, 25-18, 27-25.
Margareta Kozuch and Christiane Furst each
charted 12 points for Germany while American
Foluke Akindarewo had a match-high 13 tallies.
Puerto Rico and USA now will move to Thailand to
play in Pool I which also consist of Russia and
hosts Thailand. The Dominican Republic will
travel to Hong Kong to compete in Pool G along
with Netherlands, China and Poland.
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