Defending champion China defeated Chinese Taipei 3-1 in a men's volleyball preliminary match at the 14th Asian Games here on Saturday.

The Chinese, who trounced Japan 3-1 on Thursday, needed one hour and 36 minutes to beat Chinese Taipei 29-27, 25-23, 24-26, 25-20.

Chinese An Jiajie and Zhang Xiang, both recalled from retirement for the Asian Games, were the stars on the court, scoring 24 and 19 points respectively. Wang Jin and Yuan Zhi also contributed 12 points each.

The Chinese team were mainly composed of former national team players and newcomers, temporary substitutes for the national team who missed the Asiad because of a conflicting schedule with the ongoing World Men's Volleyball Championship.

But the team were apparently in high moods in the day's match, as evidenced by their unswerving comebacks in three of the four sets.

Taking turns to lead, the two sides actually came even in the first set before the score stood at 26-26. But the following serve error by Wu Zhimin of Chinese Taipei and successful blocking by Chinese Wang Jin ended the set to the Chinese side's favor.

The Chinese trailed Chinese Taipei for the most part of the second set. But strong attacks by veteran Zhang Xiang in the later part of the set wreaked havoc in the opposite court and the Chinese won 25-23.

In the third set, Chinese Taipei began to take the lead from 15-15 till the other side made it 24-24. But Chinese Taipei nailed the set at 26-24 to their favor.

Serving and tactics errors by Chinese Taipei finally cost them the fourth set which was sealed by the Chinese winning 25-20.

In other matches of the day, Japan routed Pakistan 25-16, 25-18,25-13 and Iran overcame Qatar 25-22, 25-15, 25-22.

(People's Daily October 6, 2002)