The 2009 Girls’ Youth World Championships started off in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, with defending champion China testing out the likes and ambitions of Peru.

Seeking for a double-up after having seized the gold medal two years ago in Mexico, the Chinese entered the match as pre-favorite, displaying quite impressive physical skills, especially in comparison with the South Americans whose average height stood at 175 cm (vs. 184 cm for China).
 
However, Peru put up an amazing show blistering to a quick 0:3 (19-25, 24-26, 16-25) and the first major surprise of this Championship. Peru enjoyed a mighty start in the first set (6-10) profiting of some shakes in the Chinese reception and finding quite often the right way through the Asian block.

Most of the Chinese receivers continued to perform quite poorly and so coach Wang felt it was time to shake out a little bit her girls in order to stop the marvelous run of the South Americans (8-14).

China stormed back at 15-16, forcing Peruvian coach Artieda to call for a time-out that was likely to re-organize the ideas and back up the fighting spirit of captain Baella and her mates. That was actually the right choice, as Peru scored another great break for the 17-23 – actually profiting again of China’s many faults – and quickly sailed away for the 0:1 in the set count.

After having struggled a little bit in the opening rallies, Peru finally got the right pace and set the tone for the first technical break (7-8) in the second set. Setter Diana Gonzales varied constantly her offensive play, thus avoiding quite regularly the tall Chinese block before a real battle – accompanied by a frenzied atmosphere - was to be seen in the “money time”.

A group of Peruvian fans dressed up with t-shirts of the national team supported the girls during the entire match, shouting the traditional phrase of “Arriba Peru!”

Gonzales leveled at 23 after a tough play at the net against the Chinese blocker; China missed a set ball at 24-23 and Baella served an ace to move the set count up to 2:0.

China got completely lost in the opening of the third set (2-6), with an endless series of unforced errors hampering a performance that was anyway overall quite poor and very disappointing for the defending champions.

Even though coach Wang changed continuously her spikers, none of them was really consistent and Peru was flying on the wings of enthusiasm (10-16). The third set was a real show for the South Americans that eventually ended at quite an embarrassing 16-25 for the defending World champions.

Peru will face Tunisia today and Turkey on Saturday at 20:30 hrs (Peruvian time). All the Peruvian team's matches will be live televised in Peru on channel 2 (Frecuencia Latina).

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