China's men's team got off to a winning start in the Asian zone qualification tournament for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a straight-set victory over Kazakhstan in Group A in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province on Tuesday.

The hosts blanked the Central Asian side 3-0 to kickstart their campaign in style.  Earlier, China had some troubles at the beginning of the match due to strong offence from the Kazakhs, but the Men in Red figured it out and went on to win the first set 25-19.

Kazakhstan fell behind early in the second but China maintained firm control in the game and never looked back. The home side went on to win the second set 25-14 without much hassle.

China took a quick 5-0 lead in the third set and extended it to 15-7 before Chinese setter Zhan Guojun got injured while blocking. He was carried off the court by his teammates. But the Chinese spikers continued with their dominance and won a furious rally to win the set 25-18 and the match as well. Home team's Jiang Chuan scored a game-high 16 points, including six aces. China will now face Chinese Taipei tonight.

China's head coach Shen Fulin said after the victory, "We played very hard tonight, and all the players were mentally and physically devoted to the game. We had a tight first set, but that is common in the first round, especially playing under the great stress of such a big stage."

Meanwhile, Chinese wing spiker Jiang Chuan commented, "Our team was more united after training for three months with coach Shen. We became stronger and harder and made progress in a lot of areas. We competed in five warm-up games, and we found quite a few defects and shortcomings, so we still have room for improvement in the future."