JAKARTA, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- China lost to defending champions Iran 3-0 at the Asiad men's volleyball here on Sunday.
With strong spikes and solid blocking, Iran took the dominance from the very beginning, leading 4-1 minutes into the first set. China managed to put their acts together later and leveled the score 8-8.
The two sides took turns to lead in the rest of the set, and though China got the set point first, it was Iran that capitalized on the chance to end the set 27-25.
Having lost the first set narrowly, China failed to turn the tides in the following two sets and lost 20-25, 21-25, respectively.
Iran's Amir Ghafour topped the scoring chart with 17 points, followed by China's Zhang Zhejia and Iran's Morteza Sharifi, both with 12 points.
The two sides each had three players who scored in double digits.
"Iran wasn't as strong as we had imagined. We actually had a few chances today, but we failed to capitalize on them," said China coach Sheng Qiong after the match.
"We wanted to win, but we were not decisive enough in our actions," Shen added.
Shen said that in general his team has brought their normal play, especially as experienced setter Zhan Guojun wasn't able to compete due to injury.
"We actually did okay in blocking, but failed to capitalize on our chances," he said.
But Shen also recognized that there is still a gap between the Chinese men's volleyball team and the Iranian team.
"We have lost to Iran many times in recent years. We should learn from the losses and improve ourselves, especially in techniques," he said.
"I really hope our young players can learn from the games here and turn better in future games," he said.