体坛英语新闻：Tianjin hold off Beijing for Chinese women's volleyball league finals

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Zhu Ting-led Tianjin held off defending champions Beijing 3-2 here Saturday afternoon to enter the finals of the Chinese women's volleyball league finals.

Following Tuesday's 3-0 win in their first match of the best-of-three series, Tianjin went on to claim the 25-23, 25-23, 22-25, 18-25 and 15-5 victory to make the finals for the fourth time in the last five years.

After Beijing rallied from two sets down to level it at 2-2, Li Yingying and Zhu combined for 12 points to lead Tianjin storm to the victory in the tie-breaker.

"After the first two sets, we lost our concentration and had problems with our attack. Fortunately, we were able to make the kills again," said Zhu, who led Tianjin with 29 points.

Li and Destinee Hooker from the United States added 28 and 15 points respectively for Tianjin.

The first set was hotly contested with the two sides fighting for a 19-all tie before Tianjin ran off four points in a row to have a 23-19 lead. Beijing answered with a 4-1 run, only to find Li seal the opener for Tianjin with a smash.

In the second set, Tianjin fell behind 12-7 after Beijing staged a 6-0 run on back of quality services, but Zhu and Li combined for seven points to help Tianjin overtake the lead at 18-17. It was 24-23 in favor of Tianjin again late in the second quarter, this time Zhu came up big with a kill to make it two sets to nil.

Rachel Rourke of Australia led Beijing with 24 points with Chinese international Liu Xiaotong and Tetori Dixon adding 16 apiece.

"We played a great game, but our opponents were the better team. They deserved the win," said Beijing coach Zhang Jianzhang.

Tianjin will play the winners between Shanghai and Guangdong in the best-of-five finals.