Legendary Volleyball Match | Japan vs China | Men's VNL 2023

Yamamoto is on court. Runs round Takahashi, side on to the court, pummels it across and it's inside the paint. Big roll for that. Inside the paint. Big roll for that. Wang serves in play. That's a rocket from the back line Byran. Nice set. One-on-one. Chinese wiki show Dejun, the outside hitter. Containment. Oh, well rested on top of the tape there for a while. Two-on-one. Well read with the block there. Hard work from Lee dashing across to this left-hand side to try and help out his outside hitter in defence. Well they went left, they went right, there was no way through. Just looking and staring it down the block there, Japan. Finally Ishikawa. That was an error in transition. But China could do nothing with that mistake. Dismissive. Good set that. Backcourt cover. Spot on. Stopping Takahashi. Run Takahashi. Goes again. Working hard. Good movement from the Chinese and that's an excellent swing as well. Off-balance but it's down on the floor from Lee and Chen. The first chance here was Nishida. So it's Onodera now to serve. One-point set. A bit loose that. Japan will come again here. Second phase of the attack and again they read Nishida. That block. One of the real big plus points. Middle attacks. Run Takahashi. Shows him how to do it. Absolutely crunches that. It's the sharpness of the angle. The speed at which he hits. Run Takahashi. There's just sign for Virovali Monza from... The biggest number in that category by any stretch of the imagination in the Chinese ranks. But look at this. They're having a right run again. Japan in all sorts of trouble. I mean that... Eased into the team. Kentomi Ara. It's 24 against Brazil. 28 against Argentina. Those are the last two matches in the previous round of Down the side. Yu Yung-tai spins around says how do you like that? Well they know that Japan have the greater support. So they seem to blitz a hole through the net there. Sharp as you like again. Yu Yung-tai stepping in when the the taller man Zhang Jin-yin is on the wrong side for the set. A follow-up. A float serve from Dai Jun there. No there's nothing they can do about that because it's fed into Miyara. They're proving to be an able deputy once again for Yuji Nishida. They certainly don't have the successful record that their women's team can look at and be proud of. The China men. Strong, sharp, snappy start to set four for Japan. Float serve. Nice and high for Ran Takahashi. Two in the air. Well Ran was the target. They had Onodera as the decoy player front row. Ran makes that transition. He makes that pipe finish look so easy. Of course it isn't but that's a measure of the technique. Float to the line. Sakita. Nice and high. Containment. Three there from China in that block. They try and get the better of a two-on-one but it's Japan now defending well. Then the two-on-one for China and that push into hand. Sakita keeps the ball from dropping on the floor and that's the block stopping Miyara. For Japan. Done well since coming in for Nishida. There's that back six. The one-on-one. That ball has to be down there surely but the shot was missed. They try and do the business with the jowls. Miss out and are spanked in punishment. With China's serve to pick up. It's a good pass as well. That transition is bang on. Ran Takahashi with a fantastic serve received. Onodera's serve. Yu's tip. Clever. Did not use that much. The tip finish. Yu does here. Yu Yuntai serving for China. Ishikawa tries to pull down the first point. Doesn't get it. Xu with that pick up. Then the flat set. Zhang. Deeper we've got into this match. The errors have started creeping in. Zhang gets the nod there. Masahiro Sekita serves again. 2-1 Japan. Fifth set here. Zhang. A little ripple off the inside of that block but it's pinged across there and found that line. Good serve. Forced the mistake. China should be putting those away. Yeah hang time there from Li. Nishikawa just sticks it home. Now Yamauchi. It's 4-4 here. It's the deciding set between Japan and China. Oh. Miyara no nonsense. Take that he says. Take that and party. 5-4. Nice set. Crunch on that. Zhang. Wang Hebin set it for China. Deep boy play. They read it well enough. Miyara shut down. He might get another chance but not if the shot is good. The shot is good from Zhai Dejun. China still punching. Still in the game and Yamauchi might have the honor here of wrapping this up. Backslides. Zhang silences the arena with the 20 points. He's got the serve in play here. This could be it for Japan. That is victory. It is nine from nine for the Imperial team in this year's Volleyball Nations League.