World's No. 2 Italy made a solid first step on their way to the first-ever Olympic gold by upsetting the Athens silver medalist Russia 25-20, 17-25, 25-16, 25-23 at the opener of women's volleyball event on Saturday.

Despite the absence of two key players Antonella Del Core and Taismary Aguero, the Italians overcome their tall, mighty rival with tenacious defense with Nadia Centoni, a substitute to Aguero, contributed 16 points to be team's No.1 scorer.

"I'm very proud of my players. We play a good match with a good rhythm," said Massimo Barbolini. "We learned a lot from the World Grand Prix, we play, we win and we lose and we are getting used to the ups and downs, and all the changes."

"We have made full preparation for the match, psychologically and physically," said Italian captain Eleonora Lo Bianco. "We are sorry Aguero can't be here, but her absence actually drive us to be more united and work even harder."

It is the third time for Italy to compete at the Olympic and its best record is the fifth place in 2004 Athens Games. The team suffered from shortages of strong attackers. Antonella Del Core also failed to come to Beijing as "there is a little problem with her heart".

Italy showed strong determination to win from the first minute and they took the lead 3-0 with two out-side spikes by Russian star wing spiders Ekaterina Gamova and Evgenia Estes (Artamonova), who recovered from years of injures.

The women's in blue uniforms expanded their advantage to 8-4, but the Russian pulled back with a 5-2 run to get close to at 9-10.

However, Russia wasted their chances to take over the lead with more spike and service errors. They lost the first set 20-25 with a out-court serve and reception mistake.

The Russian tall spikers started to showcase fatal offense and solid block in the second set, which made it difficult for Italian side hitters Nadia Centoni and Serena Ortolani to execute.

They led the set 4-3 to 10-6 with powerful service and lethal attack presented by Liubov Shashkova and Estes and finally took the set 25-17 with a duo-block.

The Italians fought back strongly in the third set. They jumped to a 15-9 lead with a 7-2 run and never looked back.

The fourth set is a fierce as the two teams both exhibit powerful attack and sound defense, but Italy handled the big moments better. With an unanswered spike of Francesca Piccinini, Italy took the set and the match 25-23.

Russia's head coach Giovanni Caprara attributed the loss to the team's poor defense and setting and blamed the "attitude" of his players

"The players lost their attention at the court and we have problems in defense and the reception is not good either, especially at the third set," said Caprara.

"We have kept telling my players to be prepared for tough matches, but it seems that I fought here alone. It's an issue of attitude," he said.

With four Olympic golds and five silvers in hand, Russia is regarded as one of the most powerful gold competitors. Caprara took the reign of the team in 2005 and led an awe-inspiring squad to win the 2006 World Championship in Tokyo. However, the Russians surprisingly failed to qualify for the 2007 World Cup and the 2008 World Grand Prix.

"Missing the major international competitions turned out to be a loss for us and we lost the chance to play with strong teams and to be more prepared," said the coach.

After this match, Russia will face on Monday even stronger Brazil, who scored straight set win over Algeria also on Saturday morning, which Italy will meet Kazakhstan.

Twelve women's teams are divided into two groups in the preliminary round of the Olympic tournament in Beijing that run through Aug. 9-17. Italy is grouped with Algeria, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia and Serbia in Pool B while defending champion China is with Cuba, Japan, Poland, USA and Venezuela in Pool A.

The knockout stage runs from Aug. 19 to 23.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)