World Grand Prix 2009

    POLAND - CHINA 3-2


    At last Polannd played at the level they can play. :woohoo: Such a great performance after disaster against Netherlands :cheesy:

    The finalists of the 2009 edition of the WGP are already defined:


    BRAZIL
    NETHERLANDS
    CHINA
    RUSSIA
    GERMANY
    JAPAN

    So sad. Only if we didn't lose against Thailand at home we could really have a chance to qualify. And fight tommorow for the spot against Russia and Germany. Especially that we play against Domenican Republic...

    i just don't believe what i've just saw. how it possible to play such a perferct match today after disaster from yesterday?? i will never understand women, i will never undersyand Volleyball.


    thank you girls for that match :rose: . with performance like that you keep hopes alive for good results during ECH :)
    no matter how many times you fall only matters how many times you will raise from ur knees :)
    and now the question is-which face is the real face of Poland :lol:


    Anyone can support a team that is winning - it takes no courage. But to
    stand behind a team to defend a team when it is down and really needs
    you, that takes a lot of courage.

    Its really surprised me to see that Poland has beated China 3:2...
    Poland played very well in this match. a huge difference from the first match against Netherlands in HK...
    The two outside hitters (Baranska & Wozniakowska)r great today. especially Wozniakowska... China can't stop her strong attack
    Of coz. China has a extreme poor libero. so the defence is ........ :down:
    Also, Gajgal played well in blocking... Maj performs gd!!! :drink:

    Brasil and Germany was a great game.....Germany played very well.....and had chance to win but Brasil was stronger....I think Brinker is a great player but should leave Germany and play in a better league.

    Hie guys, please allow me to have a venting session against china for a minute. They are my favourite team but they are really frustrating me at the moment!!!


    Ok today was a good match from Poland, - not surprising - Poland is inconsistent so they sometimes come up wiht huge wins out of nowhere - but what has happened to China? Their defence and reception has always been good, and without it ofcourse they cant really do anything. They really need otoget back Zhou Suhong and the old libero Zhang na back. Current oppostie is ok, but not effective in combination attacks and pass is average. As for the current liberos - both of them..totally rubbish.


    I dont like where the Chinese game is headed too. Very slow hugh balls all the time like Russia, but without the tall powerful outsides to kill the ball all the time! Wang yimei does her best, but she for her build, she cant jump as high so she doesnt have the reach of gamova or kosheleva for example. I am really worried that China is actually going backwards! Look at Brazil, they are doing well because they are now playing the Asian game - fast fast fast, but their girls also spend a lot of time in the gym so they have power and speed as well. China need to be like Japan (but i suppose they need Takeshita) in terms of speed, since they do have more powerful attackers than Japan - thats the perfect combination for their game. Doesnt the coach see this ?????? Exactly where is this coach taking this new chinese team??



    I know they are still learning but their level of play is really bad. Yesterday the dominican libero kept dropping the free ball short and Chinese players were caught out EVERY TIME! The realtively weaker team of the 2007 grand prix seems to me to be even better than the current team.


    does anyone share these views? i would be interested to hear what other people think.



    BRING BACK ZHOU SUHONG!!!!!






    Oh and lastly



    Thank you guys for all the posts and links - this site is the best ever! I livei nthe United Kingdom and we barely get any volleybal lcoverage. I am a huge fan and volleyball player so its nice to get to see matches! thanks a million everyone who posts on here :heart: :wavy: :obey:


    p.s i also read the forum everyday even though i dont post a lot of my thoughts!

    Fantastic match Poles:) :thumbsup:

    It goes without saying that the Polish team is good. Their problem are the ups and downs. I believe one reason for it is that there is always one or two key players missing in the Polish team. The full force of the team, I mean, the best six player of Poland, do not practice and play as often as players from other teams do.

    Agguerro, I do share the same view as you about China. A few posts ago, I stated that I found odd how China played at such a low level against Poland (in the week before, in Macau). However, in the next game they totally surprised me and played an amazing game against Brazil.


    I believe they are very inconsistent right now, as pretty much every team is. As for the technical and tactics stuff, you have a point. I think major let down are the liberos. Xian Zhang is not reliable at all at reception, where she should be commanding. The other receivers too. And China needs that speed! I find it hard to believe that China can't find better liberos and Russia can't find better setters. Those countries are huge!


    Anyway, I do think they'll improve once the Final 6 begins, because seems they get better when the challenge becomes tougher. These games against Poland, although weren't good ones, also didn't mean real danger. Today China was already qualified, for instance. But they should keep a yellow light on.


    In another note, I watched Brazil vs Germany today and was very pleased to see the level today was higher, at least in the german side. It's good that Brazil faces tough challenges too, because this team needs to improve a bunch. Today Natalia recovered a lot in the game after a not so good start. Adenizia showed real good spirit too, it's nice to see that.


    As for Germany, I think they dropped the momentum a few times. Fürst was excellent in the beginning, she was the main reason why Germany won the first set. As the game progressed, she didn't receive the same amount of balls. Brinker and Kozuch were hard to stop too, but I was mainly impressed with Petrausch, 'cause I didn't know her. I only knew she was MVP last much in the Junior World Championship. She seems a great promise, great body structure, really powerful.

    Petrausch wasn't MVP unfortunately (Castillo was), but I agree that she is a big hope for our team. We certainly need someone who is better than Beier/Matthes.
    I was really really impressed with Natalia's performance. Of course she is still young and makes too many mistakes and is not a great receiver like Jaqueline, but her attacks are so powerful, almost brutal sometimes. Jaqueline and Sassa will have a hard time to see court for Brazil if Natalia develops further.
    I hope all teams will bring the best available players for the final round so we will see some exciting matches there too :thumbsup:

    Oh my, Russian reception is really a problem. They played with Kabeshova-Murtazaeva-Sedova (L-MB-MB) as receivers for the first sets. Then the receivers were just Kabeshova and Murtazaeva.
    The MBs are out of attack in this way. Both of them attacked just three balls!! :what:

    Yeah I agree...Sedova and Murtazaeva are ok as receivers (certainly better than e.g. Kosheleva), but a perfect reception is no help when there is no middle hitter to whom the setter can play :down: I hope they will change their system when Safronova is back...Another problem is that they don't have many options for backrow attacks when both middles receive and both OH go out for libero.


    And then they come back to play an excellent game against the in-form team Netherlands and beat them 3-1!! Very inconsistent. The first two sets were unbelievable. suddenly China was defending everthing, and that took Flier out of the match. the passing was a bit better, Netherlands have good float serves. so there is hope for china after all. Also better use of combination attacks by Wei the setter. She really destroyed the Netherlands block (although the Dutch are missing their key player - Hurrman in the middle position).


    IF China play like this then they might give Brazil a run for their money. Brazil serves are not as good as the dutch, but brazil defend better and are much quicker. China couldnt stop Visser in the middle, they will struggle against Fabiana - she is a much better class of player.

    so Poland won their last match after pretty bad match against Dominican Republic. i think only block worked well (26 blocks 10 of Gajgal :win: ) rest specially attack was rubish
    so we will probably be 7th in final ranking. i think it's good result considering how many changes are in the team and how difficult pools we had(we played 5 times with teams from top 3 and none with teams which are last like Korea and Puerto rico)what's more if we haven't lost to Thailand in first match we could be in f6 right now. so it was good but it could be lot better, definitly matches like that with Holland can't happaned we can't humilate ourself in that way.


    Holland lost to China or i should said Flier lost to China. it was really the first opponent that is really strong in this year competition for Dutch team. they didn't pass this test to well but i think in finals they will launch their turbo mode and Flier won't be alone :)


    Japan won :drink: after disaster in first week their start to play really well , they lost only 1 match against fantastic Brazil so i'm very happy for them :) i think starting line up with Kano is more effective than with Sakashita . Kurihara played outstanding match today :D


    so my prediction on f6 is that Brazil will win quite easily China will be second 3rd should be Holland but i'm hoping Japan can pull off some huge surprice and be 3rd :) i don't think Russia or Germany can be dangarous in the finals


    Anyone can support a team that is winning - it takes no courage. But to
    stand behind a team to defend a team when it is down and really needs
    you, that takes a lot of courage.

    Congratulations to China. I thought the girls will choke in the 4th set. :lol:

    The reception of China was better than the reception of the Netherlands. While, as I read above, China has reception problems.. or at least inconsitency in the reception. Was China playing with their best team? For Holland Huurman did not play en Stealens did not play a lot, she is more powerfull than Blom is. Overall an interesting match and i'm looking forward to the final roud in Japan!

    Germans are in finals thanks wins against Korea, Dominican Rep., Puerto Rico and 2 times USA, these teams are at 8-12 positions in general standings. Also Russia won against Dominican Rep., Korea (2 times), Thailand and USA. Put it mildly pools composition is not so fair.
    I hope finals in Tokio will check everything.

    Quote from Chipp

    Was China playing with their best team?

    I don't think that at this moment I can consider that the team fielded by China is their best team. The team is in a developmental phase as most of the players in the team, except probably for Wang Yimei, are all earning their spurs. The strong serves by Wang Yimei and the strong work by the middles gave them the 4th.


    I hope Staelens would work her middles more... Alice Blom would also need to work on her reception more...