The Chinese women's volleyball team is ranked 5th in the world and 1st in Asia. The team's impressive list of achievements includes 3 Olympic gold medals, a total of 10 world titles (World Championship, World Cup, World Grand Champions Cup, FIVB Grand Prix), 13 Asian championships and 8 ASIAD gold medals.
This is the opponent that the Vietnamese women's volleyball team is about to face in its first-ever semi-final of the Asian Championship. Of all the opponents that generations of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team have faced, China and Japan are the strongest.
The Chinese team participated in the Asian championship with the second team.
Before 2022, the Vietnamese women's team faced China 10 times in the Asian Championship, Asian Cup and ASIAD without winning a single game. The best result was only scoring 23 points in a game at the Asian Cup in 2012. That was the rare time the Vietnamese team scored more than 20 points in a game against China.
It was not until 10 years later that Ngoc Hoa and Kim Hue's juniors won their first match against the strongest team in Asia. At the 2022 Asian Cup, the Vietnamese women's team caused a surprise when they won 2 games against the Chinese team after losing 0-2. However, in the deciding set, the Chinese women's team still showed their class to win 3-2.
Since 2017, Chinese women's volleyball has focused on using young players in Asian tournaments. They only won gold medals at the 2018 Asian Games and Asian Cup but still maintained their position in the top 3 in the remaining tournaments.
According to Hoan Cau, at the 2023 Asian Championship, the Chinese team will only use the second team because the main team is training to prepare for the 2024 Paris Olympic qualifiers starting September 16. The entire FIVB Nations League squad will not participate.
Vietnam women's volleyball team faces China in the semi-finals of the 2023 Asian Championship.
The key player for the Chinese team at the Asian Championship is Wu Mengjie. The 2002-born main attacker is the team's main scorer, regularly contributing around 15 points or more in each match. She is 1m89 tall and has a jump range of around 3m.
Besides, the two middle blockers Zhou Yetong (born in 2002), 1m86 tall and middle blocker Yang Hanyu (1999), 1m96 tall, both have a jump range of over 3 meters and are also outstanding players with good scoring and blocking abilities.
Compared to the lineup a year ago, the Vietnamese women's team has not changed much. The head coach position is still Mr. Nguyen Tuan Kiet.
With the opponent not using their strongest lineup, while the Vietnamese team is improving and performing well after a series of continuous matches since the beginning of the year, Thanh Thuy and her teammates can hope to create a surprise.
Xuan Phuong
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