Volleyball: Russia crushes South Korea 3-0 to enter semis
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-08-25 07:01

Russia bounced back from a dismal loss to China, crushing South Korea 3-0 Tuesday in a quarter-final match of women's volleyball at Athens Olympics.

Russia got a comfortable victory with 25-17, 25-15 and 25-22.

"This is a very important match for us and we played well," said Nikolay Karpol, head coach of Russia. "But we lost our concentration in the third set because we saw that we were winning."

Ekaterina Gamova led Russia with 24 points and 9 blocks, with Lioubov Shashkova scoring 19 and Irina Tebenikhina 9.

South Korea captain Ku Min Jung had 14 points and Choi Kwangheeadded 8, but they did not contribute much after South Koreans trailed by big margin in the first two sets.

"Russia is a very strong team. We could not go through their spikes and we lost the match," said South Korea's head coach Kim Cheol Yong.

After losing the opening two sets, South Koreans came back strongly in the third to catch up to 21-21.

But Gamova's two consecutive scores totally crushed the South Koreans' hope to win at least one set, and Shashkova's wonderful spike finished the one hour and 20 minutes game.

The tough defense of South Korea could not help much when facing world No. 5 Russia. Russian beat South Korea on every aspect of the game, like spikes (59-32), blocks (11-10), serves (6-0) and turnovers (8-12).

Russia, who lost to China 3-0 on Sunday to rank second in GroupB, will face the winner of another quarter-final between Brazil and United States, which will be held later on Tuesday.

"We don't have any preference for our next opponent. All teams in this stage are very good. We are ready to face any opponent. Weare in a very good shape and ready to fight against any team," said Shashkova.