Tokyo, Japan, August 21, 2009: Russia recovered from losing the first set to beat China 3-1 in the first match on the third day of the FIVB World Grand Prix Final Round at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Friday afternoon.

The world champions beat China 27-29, 25-16, 25-19, 25-23 to improve their win-loss record to 2-1. China dropped to 0-3 with two games to play. 

CHINA

Head Coach Cai Bin: We lost the game again, but my players did their best. We felt a lot of pressure against Russia over the net, and we could not block No. 15 (Kosheleva), whose spike was very good. Also we could not stop Gamova, who was strong from both sides. That is the reason why we lost today. Our serve and serve reception did not work well, and when the ball was in a rally we could not win the point. We want to make adjustments in the mistakes we made today.

information and Photo from FIVB.com