USA, Italy remain untouchable in World Cup
SAPPORO, Japan (AFP) — In Kumamoto, the United States, who upset world silver medallists Brazil on Wednesday, outclassed the Dominican Republic 25-16, 20-25, 25-16, 25-18, to also record a sixth win out of six in the women's World Cup volleyball on Friday.
European champions Italy whipped Poland to record a sixth straight win and maintain their 100 percent record.
Seeking their second major title following their victory at the 2002 world championships, the Italian women coasted to a straightforward 25-15, 25-15, 25-18 win over the former European champions.
The top three finishers in the 12-team round robin competition will qualify for the Beijing Olympics next year.
Wing spiker Francesca Piccinini led the Italian onslaught, scoring 19 points including three service winners.
"I'm really happy for this result and for our ranking, too, because this was very important to win against Poland," said Italy's coach Massimo Barbolini.
"I think we played the best match in this competition, we played a very good match against a team that is at the same level as Cuba and the US, so it was a very difficult match."
Poland's coach Marco Bonitta was downcast after seeing his team suffer their fourth defeat in six matches.
"We played a very bad game, the worst we have played in this competition. We cannot get a medal, so we have to change our goal and think about how we are going to play from now on," said Bonitta.
"We have lost some important games and my players lost their confidence. We have to get back to winning a game and play match by match," he added.
Despite remaining unbeaten, US coach Lang Ping said her players lost concentration in the second set -- which they lost -- of their win over the Dominican Republic.
"During the whole tournament, there are times when you go up and down, but we need to keep our concentration and maintain the level of energy for the next five matches," said Chinese Lang.
Captain Robyn Ah Mow-Santos agreed, saying: "In the second set we lost our focus and it looked like we didn't have any energy, so it was a good thing we came back in the third and fourth sets."
Meanwhile, Brazil stormed back to winning ways by beating Asian bronze medallists Thailand 25-12, 25-13, 25-20 earlier in the day.
In other matches, Serbia overwhelmed African champions Kenya 25-15, 25-16, 25-10, four-time former champions Cuba edged past South Korea 25-20, 17-25, 19-25, 25-21, 15-10, while Japan defeated Peru 25-18, 25-13, 22-25, 25-19.
