China won over its final match against the Dominican Republic in a thrilling five setter at the third round of the FIVB Women's Volleyball World Championship in Italy on Thursday.

The Chinese nationals started out tense after suffering a 3-0 loss against Brazil Wednesday in their second matchup against the Dominican squad as the Chinese team couldn't seem to find their rhythm and had trouble blocking shots as Dominican team captain Bethania De La Cruz walloped her way to lead her team to take a 2-0 lead.

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China still had problems closing out the net but despite of that, Ting Zhu rose to the occasion and converted on her attacks to lift China to a third set victory.

China coach Jenny Lang Ping replaced 6-foot-5 middle blocker Yunli Xu with 6-foot-6 Xinyue Yuan in the fourth set to assist Junjing Yang in blocking the Dominican attacks which helped as they went on to level the match at two apiece.

In the fifth and deciding set, the star players went head-to-head as Zhu fired attacks down the line while De La Cruz countered with cross court spikes to even the set at 9-all but China pulled together in the end finish the match 22-25, 23-25, 25-23, 25-23, 15-12 in a two hour and 24 minute battle.

Zhu led the Chinese nationals with 25 points while De La Cruz scored an astounding 39 points to lead the Dominican Republic.

"It was very tough for us," Lang Ping said. "The Dominican Republic played very well as they did during the whole tournament. At the beginning we couldn't block them but eventually we found a way to stop them."

Since China lost two sets in the match, Brazil automatically moves on to the final four and now awaits the result of the matchup between Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

China will watch intently on their match and cheer Brazil to win so that they will also move on to the final rounds.

TagsJenny Lang Ping, Ting Zhu, Bethania De La Cruz