Russia trounces Kazakhstan to snap two-game losing streak
13/8/2008 18:14
Reigning world champion Russia trounced Kazakhstan 3-0 in Beijing today to
snap its two-game losing streak in the Beijing Games women's volleyball
preliminaries.
The Russian women, who had lost to Italy and Brazil in its
first two matches, had no great trouble delivering the lowly ranked Asian team
25-19, 25-18 and 25-11 in the pool B clash at the Capital Gymnasium.
"I am
very happy for the victory, we played better and better in the last two games,"
said Russia head coach Giovanni Caprara. "I am confident that we can make the
quarterfinals and even go further."
Ekaterina Gamova led Russia with 14
points with Liubov Shashkova and Natalia Alimova adding 13 apiece.
"It's good
to win the first victory, I think we played more aggressively today than we did
in the last two games," said Russia captain Marina Sheshenina. "Hopefully we
will play better in the next games."
Kazakhstan, who claimed the fourth and
final berth for the Beijing Games at the Olympic qualification tournament in
Japan in May, has yet to record a win in three tries in the round-robin
play.
"It's great honor and opportunity for us to participate in the highest
level competition like the Olympics and play against strong teams like Russia,
we are here to learn from the strong teams," said Kazakhstan head coach Viktor
Zhuravlev. "I would like to wish Russia good luck in its pursuit of the gold
medal."
Yelena Pavlova scored 17 points to lead the Kazakhstan
offense.
Twelve teams are competing in two groups in the round robin
preliminaries with top four finishers from each group to qualify for the
quarterfinals.
Xinhua
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