CHENGDU, July 27 (Xinhua) — The Chinese crew is anticipating to have a “good result” on the upcoming girls’s volleyball competitions of the Chengdu Universiade, setter Xu Xiaoting instructed Xinhua after their coaching session right here on Thursday.
“It will be my first appearance at University Games. We will try our best and I hope we can have a good result at the tournament,” stated the 25-year-old Xu, a member of the silver medal-winning Chinese nationwide crew on the Volleyball Nations League earlier this month.
“It was a very good experience for me. As a back-up player, I just tried to do my job when I was substituted in. I think my cooperation with the attackers were getting better as the games went on,” she added.
China head coach Zhao Yong thought of Japan, Italy and Brazil as robust medal contenders within the 12-team match.
“According to the information we got, Japan and Italy have sent strong squads to this Universiade and Brazil is a traditional volleyball powerhouse. We will just try our best in every game,” he stated.
China is to tackle Germany in its opening pool B match on Sunday. The 12 groups will play in a single spherical robin format in 4 swimming pools within the preliminaries with the highest two groups from every pool to make the quarterfinals.