The reigning Olympic champion, in desperate need of a victory after a disappointing fifth-place finish at the 2006 World Championship in Japan, fielded a full-strength squad led by captain Feng Kun.

The Chinese spiker handed out a volleyball lesson to the Vietnamese peers with devastating spikes and powerful servings, ending the one-sided match 25-18, 25-9 and 25-10 in less than one hour.

Chen Zhonghe, China's head coach, was satisfied with his team, but kept a low-key on his expectations at the games.

"It's a challenge for China to play weaker teams. So, I asked my players to go all out in this match and they didn't let me down," said Chen.

"But at the first set, we had some serving errors, which left a12-12 tie to Vietnam and that's what I hadn't expected," said Chen. "Every match is the key match for us and now, we are concentrating on the preparations for the matches later."

In the following match of the day, South Korea rallied from two sets down to upset arch rival Chinese Taipei 3-2, revenging the 2-3 loss to the latter at the World Championship.

Due to a slow start and a string of service errors, South Korean, silver medalist of the Busan Asiad, lost the opening two sets 21-25 and 20-25, but came back to life and controlled the rhythm of the match's rest time, pulling it back 25-23, 25-19 and 15-9.

"I'm happy with the victory, but I'm not satisfied with my players at the beginning of the match. They moved too slowly," said Kim Myeong Soo, head coach of South Korea. "We should focus on the next match against powerful China now. That is what I care about."

Lin Kuang Hung, head coach of Chinese Taipei, blamed the poor physical conditions and excessive serving and receiving errors of his team for the dramatic loss.

"The World Championship cost us dear and left little time for the recovery," said Lin. "However, we should learn from the never-give-up spirit of the Koreans."

In another two matches of the day, Busan Asiad's bronze medalist Japan powered to a straight-set victory over Mongolia, while Thailand overshadowed Tajikstan 3-0.

Nine teams split into two groups to battle for the women's volleyball championship, with China, South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Vietnam playing in Group A and Kazakhstan, Japan, Thailand, Tajikistan and Mongolia in Group B.

Japan, South Korea and Chinese Taipei were generally regarded as the major opponents of China at the Asian Games.