HONG KONG, China, July 8, 2005.- The Dominican Republic presented a tough battle for two sets with China before losing to the Olympic champions 25-20, 27-25, 25-19 in the opening day of the third and last Preliminary Round of the 2005 Women’s Volleyball World Grand Prix. Hao Yang was the best Chinese scorer with 21 points while Yimei Wang and Yanan Liu added 10 and 9 respectively and Suhong Zhou had 7.

Cosiris Rodriguez and Annerys Vargas had 11 and 10 for Dominican Republic and Prisilla Rivera and Dahiana Burgos had 7 apiece. “It was a beautiful match and we played with a lot of intensity for the first two sets before letting it down a little in the third set,” said Dominican Rodriguez. “I hope this one will help us for the next two matches against Italy and Germany.”

Francisco Cruz, the Dominican coach, said: “I am satisfied with the way we played tonight. We practiced some tactics against a rival like China and the players now know that can work with good results.” Chinese coach, Zhonghe Chen, said: “The Dominican team had a great performance during the first two sets and my team committed some mistakes, especially in the passing.” 

Both teams played evenly for the first part of the first set with the Dominicans taking a one-point lead at 13-12. China then made a 7-2 rally that included one block and two spikes by Liu. Yang closed it with one ace.

In the second set, the Dominicans took a 9-6 lead but China tied the score at 10-all with one ace by Wang and spike by Yang. Both teams got into a gruelling battle the rest of the way with the Dominicans erasing a three-point deficit (20-23) with spikes by Rodriguez and Burgos and ace by the latter to tie at 25-all. One foot fault with Cindy Rondon serving and one block by Liu decided the set.

China dominated the score since the start of the third set, but Dominican Republic closed the gap at 9-10 only to see the Chinese made a 3 point rally building a definitive margin.