The Chinese women's volleyball team will start on Tuesday its campaign to add the world championship title to its Olympic and World Cup crowns.

Asia's first round qualifying tournament of the World Championship, which is scheduled to be held in Japan from October 31-November 16 next year, will kick off here tomorrow. Along withChina, Chinese Taipei, Australia, Uzbekistan and Jordan will vie for two berths in the quadrennial event.

"No doubt we will try our utmost to gain qualification," said Chen Zhonghe, the Chinese head coach who led his team to back-to- back victories in the World Cup in 2003 and the Athens Olympics last year.

"In light of our mediocre performance in the World Grand Prix finals, I will reshuffle our starting line-up and change our tactics somewhat," he added.

China, which had been heavily favored to win the World Grand Prix finals last month, finished a disappointing third place afterlosing to Cuba and Italy at the six-team event.

Chen attributed his side's losses to the pressures resulting from their Olympic glory.

"We must forget about yesterday's achievement the and start from scratch," he said.

Australia's coach Jiang Ying said China would be in a class of its own in Ningbo while the rest teams have to battle for the other slot in the world championship.

"China will for sure qualify, simply because they are too strong, " said Jiang Ying, a former player of the Chinese nationalteam in the 1980s.

"What we can do is try to qualify as the second-placed team."

The coaches of Jordan and Uzbeskitan echoed Jiang's view.

"It is a good opportunity to play with such great teams like China and Australia. We don't have very high expectations," Jordancoach Zahran Fawwaz said through an interpreter.

"Chinese players are very good, and they are the Olympic champion. My team is very young and we need to learn from them," said Uzbekistan coach Leonid Ayrapetyants.

China will first play Jordan on Wednesday, and Australia will face Uzbekistan.

Editor: Donald