BY ABBY TORALBA
REIGNING champion China rallied past gritty Iran 24-26, 25-19, 25-10, 25-13 yesterday to complete a sweep of its Pool A campaign in the AVC Cup for Women at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig.
Skipper Wang Yifan fired a 25-point performance for the Chinese, while Zhuang Yushan and Hu Mingyuan delivered 12 and 10 kills, respectively.
The Chinese crew finished with a 4-0 card and advanced to the quarterfinals of the continental tourney.
Team captain Elahe Poor Saleh Shahdehsari had 13 points for Iran, which ended with a 1-3 mark.
In the first match, Japan blasted Australia 25-4, 25-11, 25-15 to also go untouched in Pool A.
Yuki Nishikawa led the way for the Japanese with 18 points, while Mizuki Tanaka chipped in 16 markers.
Japan gained a spot in the quarterfinals with a 3-0 card.
“We have only a little time to prepare for this competition, but we did pretty great and I’m so happy for it,” Nishikawa said through an interpreter.
“We wanna enjoy playing volleyball as well (to) improve every game and we wanna win this competition, the championship,” Tanaka added also through an interpreter.
After a fine showing in the first set, Japan continued to wreak havoc in the second frame, rolling to an early 11-3 count following a back line kill from Miyu Nakagawa.
The Japanese crew even padded its edge to 23-8 after a block from Yuka Sato, with Tanaka finishing the set with an off-speed attack.
There was no stopping Japan in the third after it zoomed to a 12-2 lead on back-to-back blocks from Asuka Hamamatsu.