China wins volleyball opening game at EAG

Hosts China won the women's volleyball tournament opener, beating Chinese Taipei 3-0 at the 6th East Asian Games in Tianjin on Sunday.

The set scores were 25-13, 25-18, 25-16 in favor of the hosts.

The Chinese team won the first two sets easily, however, Chinese Taipei did not give up and grabbed a 9-8 lead in the third set.

"At that point we replaced Yang Fangxu with Tang Ningya and that changed the game tempo," said Dong Ruijun, head coach of the Chinese women's team.

Dong said he was satisfied with the performance of his team, which consists of under-19 players.

"The relative elder members of this team will participate in the FIVB Volleyball U23 World Championship while the younger ones will also participate in the youth competitions next year," Dong said.

The Chinese Taipei team, however, are also young with average age of under 20.

"My team does not have as much experience in international competitions as the Chinese team and our average height is also lower than the opponents. The girls did not perform their best in this game," said Lin Ming Hui, head coach of the Chinese Taipei team.

Lin said that they really learned a lot from the game and he had confidence that his team would play better in next matches.

The six teams participating in the EAG volleyball tournament are divided into two round-robin groups with top two teams from each group advancing to the semifinals.