Apinyapong Wilavan of Thailand
It took the Thais two hours and six minutes to claim their first victory of the tournament 21-25, 25-22, 34-32, 21-25 and 15-13 despite the overwhelming cheers of home fans for the Chinese.
Thailand started strongly against the host, racing to a 7-3 lead in the opening set, but China steadily pulled it back before Xu Yunli‘s speedy shot tied the game at 8-8.
China then ran off six of the next seven points in a row to move to a 16-11 lead, Hui Ruoqi and Xu combined to score four points of them. After the second TTO, China extended the gap six points and a pair of shots from Xu pushed China go forward to 22-17.
An out-of-court serve of Onuma Sittirak gave China the first set point and Yang Junjing‘s high spike sealed the victory for China at 25-21.
It was an even match in the second set, China built up an early two points cushion, but Thailand soon recovered and tied the game six times untile China led into the second TTO 16-13 thanks to a spiking error from Amporn Hyapha.
However, it is China‘s turn to commit mistakes as Thailand launched a 4-0 run to lead the game for the first time at 17-16 to force China‘s coach Yu Juemin called the first timeout of the match.
The Thais kept the two-point advantage to 23-21. Sittirak and Hyapha then combined to stop Hui’s spike to get the set point and another spiking error from Hui gave Thailand the second set at 25-22.
Inspired with the second set win, Thailand made an early effort to go ahead 6-2 in the third set and led 8-5 in to the first TTO.
On basis of the height on the net, China slowly narrowed the gap until Chu Jinling‘s ace serve leveled the game at 12-12.
Tied at 22-all, the game turned white-hot as both teams could not turn the set points into final win until Tapaphaipun Chaisri‘s block moved Thailand to their sixth set point and Malika Kanthong refused Hui‘s spike for Thailand to claim the third set at 34-32.
