Turkey edge China 3-2 to reach volleyball semis

PARIS: Turkey beat China in a five-set thriller here on Tuesday to reach the women’s volleyball semi-finals of the Paris Games. Melissa Teresa Vargas scored 42 points to lead the Turkish women to the victory (23-25, 25-21, 26-24, 21-25, 15-12) in the first quarter-final match Tuesday morning.

It was tied 11-all in the fifth set before a smash of Vargas and a spiking error from Wu Mengjie of China pushed Türkiye up at 13-11. Gong Xiangyu had a smash to pull China within 13-12, but another kill of Vargas and a smart play of Elif Sahin, who replaced injured starting setter Cansu Ozbay in the last three sets, sealed the victory for Turkey. “Vargas played a great game. We tried our best to stop her, but could not do that well enough,” said China head coach Cai Bin.

The Chinese women had a 5-1 surge to take a 22-18 lead late in the first set and held it to 24-20. Turkey ran off with three points in a row to make it 24-23, but Ilkin Aydin awarded the first set to China with a serving error.