China’s volleyball star Gong Xiangyu shines despite losing against Turkey in Nations League

The performance of Gong Xiangyu was widely praised despite China ending the second week of the 2026 Volleyball Women’s Nations League with a hard-fought, five-set loss to hosts Turkey.
In the match against Turkey, Gong scored a team-high 22 points, matching Turkish superstar Melissa Vargas point-for-point across the net. Gong and Tang Xin rotated to spearhead the attack.
Netizens praised Gong for “delivering the most dominant and sharpest offence since taking over as captain for the new Olympic cycle”.
Gong really found her rhythm in the second set, bypassing the Turkish block and saving multiple set points. Tied at 24-24, a successful challenge by China secured a critical point before Gong completed the comeback, claiming the set 28-26.
In the third set, Gong dominated with two aces and down-the-line attacks at crucial moments while turning her reliable passing into breakthroughs.
“It was great to see veteran Gong Xiangyu perform well on the offensive end, playing maturely and with experience, doing an excellent job stabilising team morale,” ex-national player Zhao Ruirui said after the match.

The former winner of the tournament added that while the final result was unfortunate, the match offered immense developmental value for the young squad.
Assistant coach Yuan Ling credited his players after the match.
“Thanks for their trying and our performance deserves recognition. I think we made some progress, but we still have room to grow,” Yuan said. “We are looking forward to our coming-of-age moment.”
Earlier in the Nations League in Ankara, China opened with a 3-2 comeback victory over Germany and a comfortable 3-0 sweep of France.
However, they stumbled against world-class powerhouses Brazil and Turkey in the final two rounds, losing 3-1 and 3-2 respectively to finish the week with two wins and two losses.
China are currently eighth in the Nations League standings with an overall record of five wins and three losses. In terms of world rankings, they have dropped to seventh globally with 334.29 points and surrendered their status as Asia’s top-ranked side to Japan, who are sixth.
The team will next head to Hong Kong for the third week of games in two weeks, where they will face Canada, Ukraine, the Dominican Republic and Italy.
Yuan said the players would use the time before the Hong Kong leg to practice and conduct targeted training against their coming opponents.
One month after the Hong Kong leg, China will join seven other top-ranked teams in Macau to contest the annual championship as hosts.
“I hope we can make it to the finals by total points and not by [being] the host team,” he added.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s erratic home performances during the second week, which ended in disappointment and left them 14th in the standings, sparked debate among local fans, especially the actions of one player.
After losing 3-0 to the Netherlands, a widely shared clip on Thai social media caught Pimpichaya Kokram complaining to veteran player-coach Onuma Sittirak.
Netizens reading her lips alleged she said: “[The coaching staff] can’t do anything at all. Why always change players? Change, change, change. Everything’s a total mess.”
Thai fans echoed her frustration and expressed disappointment with the coaching staff online. “She is so frustrated, and so is the audience,” one comment read.
“That’s so true. It’s like we didn’t even have time to find our footing, and it happened again. I understand her; she thought Thailand could do it [and we thought so too]. At the very least, we should have won a set because we were holding our own at the beginning,” another fan said.
Next month, Thailand faces a challenging week in Osaka, Japan, where they will play the United States, host nation Japan, Brazil and Turkey.