China beats Japan 3-1 to claim title at 2017 FIVB World Grand Champions Cup

Lang Ping (R), head coach of Chinese Women National Volleyball Team, holds the trophy with her player Zhu Ting after the awarding ceremony for FIVB Women's Grand Champions Cup 2017 at Nippon Gaishi Hall in Nagoya, Japan on Sept 10, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

NAGOYA, Japan - China clinched its second title at the FIVB Volleyball Women's World Grand Champions Cup following a 3-1 victory over host Japan here on Sunday.

Zhu Ting scored a game-high 26 points, including 25 spikes and an ace. Zhang Changning, Yuan Xinyue, Yan Ni and Zeng Chunlei also scored double digits.

"China has many players who have good scoring capacities, apart from Zhu Ting. Almost all their players up in today's game scored. We should try to stop not only Zhu, but also the others," said Nara Iwasaka, captain of the Japanese team.

"During today's game, as a team, we sometimes almost lost our willingness (to go on fighting), but we managed to continue till the end of the game," said Kumi Nakada, Japanese head coach.

She added that the Chinese team seems to have no weak points. "Their height, and their strength...we have to somehow compete such height and strength," she said.

An Jiajie, the Chinese coach, said after the game that Japan was very good at defending, and China will learn from Japan in this aspect.

"We have won a lot, but we have also many problems. We will try to find out these problems and while improving the confidence of our players, build a more stable team," said An.

The set scores were 25-22, 24-26, 25-18, 25-16.

This was the fifth straight win of China at this year's tournament, after beating the US 3-1, dominating Brazil 3-2, and trouncing South Korea and Russia in straight sets.

China also won a FIVB Volleyball Women's World Grand Champions Cup title in 2001.