European champion Italy and four-time title winner Cuba claimed big wins on Tuesday at the 2007 women's volleyball World Cup.
Simona Gioli and Taimary Aguero scored 17 points each to lead Italy past Serbia 23-25, 25-14, 16-25, 25-17, 15-7 in a repeat of last month's European Championships final, where Italy won in straight sets.
"We are happy to win, but it's still too early to talk about the chance to win the title or to qualify for the Olympics," said Gioli, who had 11 kills and six blocks in the match that lasted for 94 minutes.
"We did not play very well, we made too many errors," she added. "I think we can play much better in the next games."
In its fourth win in a row, Italy conceded 27 points through errors, but also reaped 36 thanks to mistakes of Serbia, who suffered its first defeat in four matches.
"We prepared quite well for this match, but our players had good points and bad points," said Serbia head coach Zoran Terzic. "It was difficult to keep them in consistent form, and eventually we lost the game."
It was fiercely contested in the first set where Serbia broke the deadlock at 19-all with four unanswered points to go up at 23-19. Francesca Piccinini drove a ball out of bounds and Antonella Del Core smashed home to help Italy pull within 24-23, only to see a serving error of Jenny Barazza award the opener to Serbia.
In the second set, Italy got a flying start, racing to a 4-0 lead. After Serbia cut it to 7-6, Italy surged away again with a 14-3 burst and never looked back.
The Italians could not maintain the momentum in the third set, but recovered to clinch the fourth with a set-ending 9-0 run. In the tie break, Italy met no serious challenge.
In Sendai, Cuba finally collected a win in its third straight full sets battle at the 2007 women's volleyball World Cup.
Coming off consecutive losses to the United States and Brazil on Saturday and Sunday, Cuba struggled past the wild card holder 21-25, 26-24, 22-25, 25-21 and 15-13 to improve to a 2-2 win-loss record and keep alive the hope of qualifying for next year's Beijing Olympics.
"It's a long competition and it's still possible to make the best three if we don't lose any more games," said Cuba head coach Antonio Perdomo.
"Regarding today's games, as we dropped two sets, obviously we didn't have the right rhythm," he added. "I have to say I am not satisfied with the way we played, even though we won."
In the tie break, Cuba overcame an 8-6 deficit to overtake the lead at 11-10, but a block by Maria Liktoras and a good spike of Malgorzata Glinka pushed Poland up again at 13-12.
Then Nancy Carrillo and Zoila Barros stopped ice Anna Podolec twice in row before Carrillo sealed the victory for Cuba with an ace.
Carrillo converted on 15 of 19 spiking attempts and added five blocks to lead Cuba with 23 points. Yumilka Ruiz and Daimi Ramirez contributed 19 and 13 points respectively.
Dropping to 1-3 in win-loss record, the Polish women only had a chance in theory of making top three in the 12-team round-robin tournament.
"Having lost some games, what we have to do now is to believe in our strength and win as many games as possible," said Poland coach Marco Bonitta.
Brazil and the United States both reaped straight sets wins, over Peru and Kenya respectively, to join Italy in the lead of the race for Olympic quotas. Sharing a 4-0 record, the two unbeaten teams will clash with each other on Wednesday.
"I think Brazil is a team with no weaknesses. All the skills are there and they play very well," said U.S. head coach Lang Ping. "So, we have to play perfectly as well to have a chance."
In Tuesday's other action, the host Japan (3-1) tamed Thailand 25-19, 27-25 and 25-14 while South Korea beat Dominican Republic 26-24, 22-25, 25-20 and 25-21 for its first win in four tries.
Source: Xinhua
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