21-Nov, start time: 15:00, end time: 17:20 - Attendance: 2,850

CHN	2	23	26	36	22	13	120
CAN	3	25	24	34	25	15	123

Match Description:

Grapentine snatches win for Canada
Three fantastic blocks from Murray Grapentine sealed an excellent comeback victory for Canada over a brave Chinese side in the second match of the 2003 Men's World Cup in the Hiroshima Green Arena on Friday.

Both teams went into this game in search of their second victories of the tournament, after having earlier beaten Egypt, and the predictably tight struggle ensued. Neither team could be split in the first set until Canadian coach Stelio DeRocco issued a huge team talk with his team ahead 22-21, moments later Canada had the set 25-23.

The second set went along in the same fashion until a set by China's Jiong He went to ground, gifting Canada a healthy 11-8 lead. But two great serves from the promising Qiong Shen and a block from Xiaodong Zhang pulled China back level at 14-14 before serving trouble struck Canada. Some abnormal efforts gave China the lead at 22-21 and that was enough to tie the match up at one-set apiece.

Canada opened up another substantial lead in the third set through the soft serving of captain Scott Koskie but at 15-8, China found the necessary spirit to fight their way back, through the spectacular serving of Miao Tang to take the lead 23-22. By this stage it was all China as the score seesawed on either a Chinese attack or mistake until the thrilling set concluded at 36-34 after Chun Li blocked Chris Wolfenden.

Once again, Canada got off to the best start in the fourth set jumping out to a 4-0 lead but this time China couldn't peg it back. Steve Brinkman eventually had the honours to finish the set before China regained their strength to take an early lead in the tiebreak. But three monster blocks from Grapentine sealed the win.

Comments:

DE ROCCO ,Stelio (CAN, Head Coach)
China is a big and young team. I did not believe that it would not be going easy tonight.
We had lost two opportunities, against Japan and Serve and Montenegro. But we played a good volleyball today and our experience prevailed.

GRAPENTINE, Murray (CAN)
In previous games we played inconsistent. But today we played a consistent game. Our passing very good. It was a great feeling to close the match with two blocking.

DI, Anhe (CHN, Head Coach)
All Chinese players did their best during the game to try to catch up with Canada. We showed our spirit and style. In this way I am satisfied with our team performance. This experience of our young players is very important for their future.

LI, Chun (CHN)
I believe China has such ability to play good volleyball against one of the top teams. If we had brought our best performance of every player, we could have beaten a top level team.

Official Result:

Match statistics (P-2) - PDF