NAGOYA, Japan, June 6 (Xinhua) — Outside hitter Zhang Jingyin scored a match-high 29 factors to earn China a 3-2 victory over Bulgaria within the opener of the 2023 FIVB Men’s Nations League right here on Tuesday.
World No. 25 China, the lowest-placed facet within the 16-team league, beat the Twenty third-ranked European facet 25-20, 21-25, 25-21, 20-25, 15-9.
With the win, China improved to twenty first on this planet rankings and made an enormous step towards avoiding relegation.
“I’m glad that we won the opening match,” mentioned Zhang, who performed with Polish facet Trefl Gdansk final season. “But we made some mistakes in the match and we need to improve our teamwork.”
China will subsequent play Serbia on June 8, earlier than assembly France on June 9 and Iran on June 10.
In Tuesday’s different actions, host Japan defeated Iran in straight units 25-16, 25-22, 25-19. Japan’s captain Yuki Ishikawa was the highest scorer of the match with 20 factors and his teammate Ran Takahashi added 10.