PARIS - Türkiye beat China in a five-set thriller here on Tuesday to reach the women's volleyball semifinals of the Paris Games.

Melissa Teresa Vargas scored 42 points to lead the Turkish women to the victory (23-25, 25-21, 26-24, 21-25, 15-12) in the first quarterfinal match Tuesday morning.

It was tied 11-all in the fifth set before a smash of Vargas and a spiking error from Wu Mengjie of China pushed Türkiye up at 13-11. Gong Xiangyu had a smash to pull China within 13-12, but another kill of Vargas and a smart play of Elif Sahin, who replaced injured starting setter Cansu Ozbay in the last three sets, sealed the victory for Türkiye.

"Vargas played a great game. We tried our best to stop her, but could not do that well enough," said China head coach Cai Bin.

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The Chinese women opened with a 5-1 run to lead 22-18 in the first set and held it to 24-20. Türkiye ran off with three points in a row to make it 24-23, but Ilkin Aydin awarded the first set to China with a serving error.

The Turkish side fought back hardly in the second set, jumping to an 8-3 lead and improved to 20-13. China steadily cut it to 22-21, only to find Türkiye wrap up the set with a 3-0 run.

The third set was closely contested as China erased an early 16-10 deficit to tie it at 24-all. However, Vargas had a kill and Ebrar Karakurt drove a ball out of bounds to secure the set for Türkiye.

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In the fourth set, China took advantage of an amazing 13-4 start to clinch the set 25-21 and force the tiebreak.