Japan survived a resilient China side, 24-26, 25-23, 21-25, 25-23, 15-12, to keep its record unblemished at the start of Week 3 of the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) Tuesday night, July 4, at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. Skipper Yuki Ishikawa and Kento Miyaura carried the cudgels in the crunch as the Japanese extended their winning record to nine games and tightened their grip of the top spot. Ishikawa unloaded 19 points highlighted by 16 kills while Miyaura fired 15 points including the game-winning down-the-line spike. Japan squandered comfortable 17-9 and 21-13 leads in the opening set after China unleashed a barrage of hits including three straight points that gave the Chinese the set win. China continued to provide a tough defensive wall and appeared to be heading to the match win with a 22-21 lead in the fourth set, but Ishikawa and Miyaura came through with hard-hitting attacks to give Japan a 24-23 lead before a service error from Zhai Dejun forged the match into a decider. This time, Japan slowly dictated the pace as it pulled away from a 5-all deadlock to 10-6 and never looked back. Ran Takahashi also showed the way from Japan with 14 points built on 10 kills and four aces, while Yuji Nishida fired 11 attacks to finish with 12 points. China’s loss – its seventh against two victories – put them at 12^th place despite the hard efforts of Zhang Jingyin, Yu Yuantai and Li Yongzhen, who finished in double figures. Zhang erupted for 21 points while Yu and Li had 17 and 16 points. The Chinese posted an impressive 17 blocks, but it was still not enough to stop a fiery Japanese crew.