The United States and Italy claimed their eighth stright wins at the women's volleyball World Cup to lead the race for Olympics qualifications.
Brushing aside South Korea 25-21, 25-19 and 25-23 in Kumamoto Sunday afternoon, the Americans will go to the Nagoya climax as hot favorite to secure a ticket to Beijing 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 Korean 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 Americans 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," Lang Ping added.
In Sapporo, European champion Italy beat Peru 25-13, 25-21 and 25-17 to share the lead with the United States with an 8-0 record.
Poland overcame the absence of its head coach Marco Bonitta, who had gone 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 want to say that this match is a present for our coach (Bonitta)," said Poland captain Milena Rosner. "He is traveling home and we are with Marco now. We are with him with our whole heart."
Having slipped to a 6-2 record, Serbia will play the United States, Brazil and Cuba in the last leg in Nagoya.
"Now we are in a very difficult situation, with three very difficult games against three difficult teams," said Serbia head coach Zoran Terzic. "But we have some chance and we will try to do it until the end of the competition."
In Sunday's other action, Cuba beat Thailand 25-22, 23-25, 25-22 and 25-13; Brazil outclassed Dominican Republic 25-16, 25-12and 25-14; Japan whitewashed Kenya 25-14, 25-12 and 25-8.
The 12 participating teams will have two days off with the round-robin competitions to resume in Nagoya on Wednesday. Six teams, namely Italy (8-0), United States (8-0), Brazil (7-1), Serbia (6-2), Cuba (6-2) and Japan (6-2) were still in contention for a top three finish and a berth in the Beijing Olympics women's volleyball tournament.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article