JAKARTA, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- China beat their last rival Australia 3-2 to finish fourth of the 2007 Asian men's Volleyball Championship here on Sunday.
The Chinese team beat Australia 21-25, 26-24, 21-25, 25-23, 15-12 to have a 5-2 win-loss record in the eight-team, round robin tournament which concluded Sunday.
"China finally played a good game today," said Zhou Jian'an, headcoach of China, adding "I am not surprise of that because the Chinese player didn't play their normal level in previous games."
Korea, who defeated Indonesia 3-0 early on Sunday, also have a 5-2 record but placed third as their point ration is better than China's.
Australia started the first set in a good tempo, quickly building a five points advantage at 19-14 and ran away with three points in a row to finish the opening set 25-21.
The beginning of the second set saw both teams fighting point for point. The efficiency of Australia attacking started falling down while China kept getting better on defense before notching up the set at 26-24.
"The second set is a turning point. China took the set and their winning momentum was unstoppable in the following sets," said Russell Borgeaud, headcoach of Australia.
"We knew clearly that if we win, we will be the champion. We played under the pressure, but it is not the reason we lost the game. China played a great game today," he added.
Australia clawed back the third set 25-21 but China soon answered with the fourth set win to force the match into the deciding set.
The fifth set was a continuation of China game. Cui Jianjun started scoring points from spiking and the accurate receiving enable the team to launch good attacks. With a pair of blocks from Guo Peng, China won the set at 15-12.
"We played well because we didn't play under the pressure as we ranked fourth in the tournament no matter we win or loss," Zhou said, adding "that is the problem, my players could not have a good performance under the pressure. This is a big problem we have to solve."
Yu Dawei scored 19 points for China while Fang Yingchao had 16.
Carroll Paul and Howard Daniel both had game-high 23 points, but the title hope of Australia has to depend on the result of game between Japan and Thailand, which will be held later on Sunday.
