OSAKA -- The United States and Italy both collected their fifth straight victory at the women's volleyball World Cup here on Wednesday to lead the race for the tickets to next year's Beijing Olympics.
The United States came from two sets down to beat Brazil 17-25, 16-25, 25-21, 25-23 and 15-9 in Sendai for their first win over the Brazilians in three years.
Having beaten strong squads including Brazil, Cuba and Poland, Lang Ping's side was in a good position to finish top three in the tournament thus to clinch a ticket to Beijing.
"Yesterday, I said Brazil had no weaknesses. You could tell in the first two sets we weren't at the same level," said the Chinese, a former world champion, at the press conference after the marathon match.
"We played very bravely today. We tried everything -- I told them you don't have to try and hit the safest spot; you have to be brave, to do something different. Brazil is too different; you have to break them down."
The Americans had a sluggish start in the high-profile match, dropping the first set without much resistance.
In the second one, the United States managed to stay within 11-10, but then their reception was destroyed by smart jumping floats of Sheilla Castro, allowing the Brazilians to surge away with a 9-1 run for an unshakable 20-12 lead.
Finally, the Americans could play steadily their game and that turned out to be the nightmare of Brazil.
Brazil fought hard to cut its 21-13 deficit to 24-23 in the fourth set, but a serve error by Paula Pequeno gave the set to the United States, who jumped to a 7-2 lead in the tie break and never looked back.
"In the first two sets, we couldn't pass or hit. After the first two sets, I told them Brazil is a great team. But don't think about the result, you have to be relaxed to win, so take it one ball at a time," said Lang Ping.
"I felt that throughout the game they kept their cool and played calmly," said Brazil head coach Jose Guimaraes. "For us in the first and second set, we played like I haven't seen in quite a while. However, from the third set, the USA mixed up their play and added new members to their lineup and from there, their attack and counterattack and play in general just took off. They were able to take over the game. In the end, the USA just played a great game."
Earlier on Wednesday, Italy beat Japan 25-18, 25-19 and 25-14 in Osaka for its fifth win in as many matches.
Also in Sendai, Cuba was tested early before overcoming Peru in straight sets for its second win in two days.
With the 29-27, 25-19 and 25-13 victory, Cuba improved its win-loss record to 3-2 while Peru slipped to 1-4.
Peru started strongly, setting well through 17-year-old Zoyla LaRosa and delivering some fine spikes while the Cuban women were sluggish and lacking their usual strong spiking power coming off their third straight full sets battle on Tuesday.
Three Cuban errors allowed Peru a three-point lead at 21-18, but two spikes by Nancy Carrillo and a great block by Yumilka Ruiz brought the scores closer before Ruiz leveled it at 22-all with a triple spike after some outstanding Peru defense.
After the two sides fought to ties at 26 and 27, Daimi Ramirez walloped a big spike and Rosir Calderon blocked Carla Tristan to clinch the set.
"Peru plays with a unique style with a good strategy on serving and blocking, so we had to use a different style ourselves to counter this," said Cuba coach Antonio Perdomo. "In the first set, they played better than us and we almost lost the set, but as the match wore on, we got into a rhythm and that helped us to win."
In the last two sets, Peru went down more tamely.
In Wednesday's other action, Poland bounced back from a five-sets loss to Cuba on Tuesday to sweep Kenya 25-12, 25-10 and 25-15, Serbia beat Dominican Republic 25-22, 25-14 and 25-23 to improve to 4-1 while South defeated Thailand 25-21, 25-20 and 25-21.
The 12 teams participating in the round-robin tournament will have a rest day on Thursday with the competitions to resume on Friday in Sapporo and Kumamoto. Top three finishers from the tournament will qualify for the Beijing Olympics.
