XI'AN, China, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria beat China 3-0 for their opening victory in Group C of the 2024 Paris Olympic men's volleyball qualifiers here on Saturday.

The visitors enjoyed an early 12-6 run through some outstanding attacking. Although China narrowed the gap, they conceded the first set 25-18.

China, fresh from their silver-medal finish in the Hangzhou Asian Games, took the lead at the beginning of the second set. But Bulgaria managed to tie things up at 9-9 and took advantage of the hosts' errors to take the second set 25-19.

The third set saw powerful serves and fierce attacks from the visitors, who closed out the victory 25-14.

"We were deeply affected by Zhang Jingyin's injury," China head coach Wu Sheng told Xinhua afterwards, referring to the absence of the 23-year-old outside hitter.

"It's just the very beginning of this tournament, and all we have to do is to strive for more wins," Wu added.

China's next match is on Sunday against Belgium, who were defeated 3-2 (23-25, 25-20, 25-16, 21-25, 17-15) by Poland in a see-saw match.

Belgium showed their defensive strength with 13 blocks, but Poland's attacks were way more evident. Lukasz Kaczmarek shone with a game-high 24 attack points plus one block point.

Top-ranked Poland will meet Bulgaria on Sunday.

Also on Saturday, Argentina swept past Mexico 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-19), and Canada beat the Netherlands 3-2 (25-21, 23-25, 24-26, 25-18, 15-12).

A total of 24 teams, split into three groups, will compete for six Olympic berths, with the top two teams of each group qualifying for Paris 2024.

Group A and B matches will take place from September 30 to October 8 in Brazil and Japan respectively.