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Italy, US both record six straight wins in Japan

The Dominican Republic's Cindy Rondon Martinez, rear, spikes the ball against US blocker Tayyiba Haneef-Park during their match at the women's World Cup in Kumamoto, Japan, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

European champions Italy whipped Poland to record a sixth straight win and maintain their 100 percent record -- along with the US -- in women's World Cup volleyball yesterday.

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.

In Kumamoto, the US, who upset world silver medalists Brazil on Wednesday, outclassed the Dominican Republic 25-16, 20-25, 25-16, 25-18, to also record a sixth win out of six.

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," Italy coach Massimo Barbolini said. "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 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," Bonitta said. "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."

Meanwhile, Brazil stormed back to winning ways by beating Asian bronze medalists Thailand 25-12, 25-13, 25-20 earlier in the day.

Thai coach Srisamutnak Nataphon, still looking for a historic first win in their debut tournament here, said his players were "nervous to play against such a strong team like Brazil."

"We also have a number of new players. In the second and third sets, we did better, but Brazil served really strong and we couldn't receive their serves well, so there wasn't much we could do," Srisamutnak said.
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