Turkey beat China 3-0 for sixth straight win in women's VNL

RIMINI, Italy - Turkey beat China in straight sets here on Wednesday for their sixth straight win in the 2021 women's Volleyball Nations League.

Ebrar Karakurt scored 17 points and Meliha Ismailoglu added 14 to help the Turkish women earn the 25-15, 25-23 and 25-21 victory.

The Chinese women fought for a 22-19 lead in the second set, only to find Turkey stage a 6-1 run to wrap up the set.

"I know that maybe China doesn't have their main players here, but it's always difficult to play against them. They had many variations in their attack, they play very quick. We had to defend a lot and it's what we did - we worked very well in block-defense," said Ismailoglu.

"Everybody did a great job, I'm very proud of my team. We had five wins of five and to gain this sixth win was even more important, especially against the team of China," she added.

Being out-blocked 11-4, China only managed 26 kills, compared to 47 for Turkey.

Earlier on Wednesday, the United States hammered Thailand 25-17, 25-14 and 25-16 for their sixth win in a row and remains atop on the standings with 18 points, two points ahead of Turkey.

Brazil and Japan both collected their fifth win in the 16-team round-robin preliminaries. Brazil rallied past Italy 3-1 while Japan whitewashed Russia 3-0.

Following Tuesday's hard-fought 3-2 upset win over China, Canada defeated Germany 3-0 for their second win in six tries.

Also on Wednesday, the Netherlands beat Serbia 3-1, Poland lost to Dominican Republic 3-1 and Belgium outlasted South Korea 3-2.

The top four finishers from the preliminaries will qualify for the semifinals.