The United States swept South Korea 25-21, 25-19 and 25-23 in Kumamoto, Japan, on Sunday for its eighth win in a row at the women's volleyball World Cup.
Having an 8-0 record in hands and three matches to play, the Americans will go to the Nagoya climax as hot favorite to secure a ticket to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and even the title.
"We're very happy with the win today. We've finished the third round exactly as we wanted," said American setter Lindsey Berg. "We now go to the fourth round with an 8-0 record and in a position to qualify (for the Olympics) and hopefully win the title."
Coming off Saturday's hard-fought win over Thailand in four sets, the United States looked more comfortable facing its second rival from Asia, making good use of its powerful attack to take the first two sets.
The South Koreans put up some real resistance in the third set where the two sides fought from draws at 16 to 23. Then Tayyiba Haneef-Park smashed home to give the United States the match point and Kimberly Glass had an ace to seal the victory for the Americans.
"We prepared very well for today's game. We know South Korea is a great team and they showed that with five sets against Cuba," said United States head coach Lang Ping. "We had trouble against Thailand so we were really concentrated on today's game."
Logan Tom led the American women with 19 points and Danielle Scott-Arruda and Haneef-Park added 17 and 11 respectively.
"The players did a good job. We still have difficult matches ahead and we need to concentrate to reach our goal and win as many games as possible," she added.
In Sapporo, Poland overcame the absence of its head coach Marco Bonitta, who had flew back to Italy to attend his pregnant wife, to upset Serbia in a five-set thriller.
Although the 24-26, 25-23, 25-12, 19-25 and 15-10 victory was too late for the Polish women, whose hope of securing a ticket to the Beijing Olympics had been demolished, it helped them improve to a 3-5 record and dented Serbia's chance of qualifying.
"I think that today our team has played a very nice match and Iam sad that Marco (Bonitta) is not here with us because we completely used his outstanding work," said acting head coach Mauro Masacci. "We have been close to winning matches before, but today we were just a little bit luckier. This match will help us a lot mentally."
"I think it was a very good match for both teams. Sometimes the match looked like men's volleyball with very hard hits and attacks," said Poland captain Milena Rosner.
"I want to say that this match is a present for our coach (Bonitta). He is traveling home and we are with Marco now. We are with him with our whole heart," she added.
Having slipped to a 6-2 record, Serbia will play the United States, Brazil and Cuba in the last leg in Nagoya.
"Poland played very good, especially after yesterday's hard game against Japan," said a disappointing Serbia coach Zoran Terzic. "Our players looked on the court much worse than before. I do not know why because it was a big chance for us."
"When you lose so many easy points, it is not possible to win against a team like Poland," he added. "Now we are in a very difficult situation, with three very difficult games against three difficult teams. But we have some chance and we will try to do it until the end of the competition."
Source: Xinhua
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