China served up a treat on the fifth and last day of the women's World Grand Prix Final Round yesterday. The Olympic champions overwhelmed Japan - not for the first time and certainly not for the last - with a straight-sets victory (25-23, 25-22, 25-23) in 80 minutes. China's powerful serving laid the foundations for their 13th-straight victory over their fierce Asian rivals, a run which includes the Athens Olympics quarter-finals last August. With Yang Hao, Chu Jinling and Zhang Ping firing on all cylinders, Japan struggled to control the ball and consequently failed to find a smooth attacking rhythm. In contrast, China continued from where they left off the previous day, when they beat Brazil, also in straight sets. In fact it was China's third-straight victory of this six-team final round, and enabled the Olympic champions to finish in third place with a 3-2 win-loss record, behind champions Brazil (4-1) and Italy (3-2), but ahead of Cuba (3-2) on points ratio. Japan (1-4) took fifth place, with the Netherlands (1-4) in sixth. After losing their first two games of the week, to Cuba and Italy, China will leave Sendai with prize money of US$75,000 for their third-place finish from a total fund for the World Grand Prix Final Round of US$500,000. Brazil collected US$200,000 after they successfully defended their title. Coach Chen Zhonghe will also be able to sleep more easily after his young team came good following a shaky opening. Yang won the individual award for best server, while Zhang Na was the best libero. Sendai City Gymnasium was packed to the rafters with a capacity crowd of 8,600, many of them screaming schoolgirls who had been revved up for the East Asia derby by the nightly appearance of boy band News. Every Japanese point was greeted with a din of thundersticks, but China gave their own answer with some thundering winners from Chu (16 spikes) and Yang (14). In the match to decide the championship, Brazil beat Italy 3-2 to claim their fifth World Grand Prix title. Brazil wasted three match points in the fourth set before winning the decider 15-7, and also produced the MVP in 23-year-old Paula Pequeno. In the first match of the day, Cuba sparked and blazed past the Netherlands 3-0.
