China aims to stay in top five in FIVB Xiamen tournament

XIAMEN, April 20 (Xinhua) -- China's beach volleyball coach Paulo Roberto Moreira da Costa said here on Friday that he hoped China's women teams would secure a place in the top five of the ongoing 2018 FIVB World Tour Xiamen Open.

"We have a goal to stay in the top five here; we have come from a long time, two months, training hard in Brazil," said Moreira da Costa, "this week we played one Asian tournament in Thailand and arrived the day after, and start to play here, so I hope we have the condition to do this," he said.

China's top team in Xiamen, Wang Fan/Xia Xinyi, had a grueling 1.07 hour match against Japanese pair Azusa Futami/Akiko Hasegawa on Thursday. Xia made a number of unforced errors on the multiple match point and the win finally went to Japan, 2-1 (18-21, 21-17, 29-27).

"The girls didn't start well, but after we started to play better and in the second we did 20-20 and we had a chance to win. In the third set we played much better," said the Brazilian coach.

The Chinese pair defeated Madalein Meppelink/Sanne Keizer from the Netherlands in a close fight, 2-1 (20-22, 23-21, 15-12) on Friday morning.

"I think beach volleyball in China has a good tradition for the women's principle. For the men's, we have good potential players. I think something new will help them to improve more and this is my job here," said Moreira da Costa.

"This year is an adaptation for me because China is a different culture from the other countries I worked. Everything is new for me and new for the players too. My methodology for the work is new and we need the time for adaptation for this, both me and them. We are starting to do this a little more now and it's important.

Another difficulty for Moreira da Costa is the language gap and communication.

"Not all the players speak English. I have a translator, but beach volleyball is not just translating what you do, it's important to really understand the concept for what I would like to say. For me I think the biggest change I would like to see is mentally and for this we need more time," said Moreira da Costa.

The Brazilian, who coached the Italian team in London and Rio Olympic Games, joined the Chinese team in November last year and is working with three women's teams, Wang Fan/Xia Xinyi, Bai Bing/Wang Xinxin and Yuan Lvwen /Wang Jingwen, and three men's teams, Ha Likejiang/Wu Jiaxi, Gao Peng/Li Yang and Wang Yanwei/Zhou Chaowei.

Based in Haikou, Hainan Island, Moreira da Costa is satisfied with facilities there. "I have good situation in Haikou, we stay inside the big university and have four courts, a gym and everything there. Maybe next year we will go to Sanya where we have a better condition to work," he said . Enditem