Russia celebrates their bronze medal
Montreux, Switzerland, June 1, 2014 – Russia ended the Montreux Volley Masters 2014 with a bronze medal,
following five-set victory over China 3-2 (19-25, 25-19, 17-25, 25-22, 15-11). The best scorer on Russia’a
side was Natalia Malykh with 23 points, while Zhu Ting and Zeng Chunlei led
China with 19 points each.The game for the third
place between China and Russia started in a very balanced way, with none of the
teams being able to take an advantage over the other. However, toward the end
of the set, Ruoqi Hui and Zhu Ting scored some key points for the Chinese. At
the same time, Russia started to make more mistakes, allowing China to take the
lead and the set 25-19.From the beginning of the
second set, Russia strongly reacted notably with a series of nice blocks to
take the lead 16-12. Ekaterine Kosianenko and her teammates managed to keep the
positive gap until the end to close on 25-19.In the third set, Lang Ping’s
team had impressive plays and scored various points on blocks. Across the net, Russia
committed many unforced errors, allowing China to increase their lead and win
the set 25-17.Both teams gave everything
they could in the fourth set and were not able to make the difference. But this
time the team of Yuri Marichev prevailed again and finished the set 25-22.Russia and China were tied
in the beginning of the tiebreak. Finally, thanks to the strong kills from
Natalia Malykh, Russia finally won the set on the score of 15-11 and finished in third place at the Montreux Volley Masters.