Asian champions China beat Cuba in straight sets here Sunday evening for their fifth win in six matches at the 2015 FIVB Women's World Cup.
The Chinese women have claimed three wins in a row after losing to the United States 3-0 on Monday. In the absence of Zhu Ting, who is recovering from a minor foot injury and rested by China coach Jenny Lang Ping, Zeng Chunlei and Zhang Changning had 16 points each to lead China to the 25-19, 25-10 and 25-14 victory. Yang Junjing, Liu Xiaotong and Yan Ni also scored in double digits.
"We prepared well for today's game and I think things went well," said Lang Ping. "Cuba have young players and you can see that they are growing and becoming better players. For us, the most important thing is to play the way we want to, and I think we have been able to see good results from our training."
"The World Cup runs over a long time so we knew things would be tough and various things could happen. We have an injured player (Zhu Ting) and we just have to deal with that. Our other players must compensate for her absence," she added.
The Cuban team has dropped five matches in a row after beating Kenya 3-1 in the opening one. Jennifer Yanet Alvarez Hernandez led Cuba with 16 points. They managed to lead 8-7 in the first set, but China came back with a 11-3 run to overtake the lead at 18-11 and went on to seal the opening set. In the second set, China jumped to an 8-1 and never looked back.
The Chinese women outblocked Cuba 17-10 and outserved them 7-1.
At the end of Day Six of the 12-team round robin tournament, Russia led the standings with six wins in a row while the United States, China, Serbia and Japan shared a 5-1 win-loss record. Top two finishers from this World Cup will secure their berths to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
