Defending champion China beat back the challenging Poland 3-1to clinch a second win, while the Athens runner-up Russia stepped further away from quarterfinals after a humiliating 0-3 loss to Brazil in Monday's women volleyball preliminaries.
The 1.96-meter middle blocker Zhao Ruirui led the Chinese squad to upset the rivals 22-25, 25-15, 25-20, 25-22 in the deafening cheers of more than 15,000 home fans. Zhao contributed the team 17 points while Polish wing spiker Katarzyna Skowronaska impressed the spectators by scoring the highest 26 points.
"The beginning of today's match was not very good. We were not consistent and lost many points by errors," said China's head coach Chen Zhonghe. "I asked the players to calm down and they soon recovered from the hesitance and pressure at the opener."
China is expected to receive bigger challenge to play three-time Olympic champion Cuba. The latter is on high spirit after scoring second victory by beating the United States in straight sets.
In the morning session of Monday's competition, world's second-ranked Italy, with the return of its point-scoring machine Taismary Aguero, scored second victory after a comfortable 3-0 win over Kazakhstan.
Aguero, whose mother just past away for illness, showed at the court in the second set and contributed the team 10 points. Previously, the former Cuba veteran was said to travel to her birth place to see her mother and then missed Italy's first match against Russia.
"Aguero is an excellent player and she is also very strong. Now, she is in the great pain of losing her mother, but she is also striving to recover from the sadness," said Italy's head coach Massimo Barbolini.
The star spiker's return also cheered up her teammates, who upset the Russians 3-1 on Saturday.
"Aguero now is back, which makes us even more confident in the rest matches. She has always been an important player of the team and we will also give her support to help get over the hard time," said Italy's captain Eleonora Lo Bianco.
Later in the day, Sydney Olympic champion Cuba claimed its second straight win with a commanding 3-0 sweep of the United States.
The world No. 3 successfully limited the American offense with strong serving on its way to the 25-15, 26-24 and 25-17 victory.
"We struggled with our receiving, so we could not play our normal offense," said United States head coach Jenny Lang Ping. "Cuba did really well in serving today."
While its major medal contenders headed confidently to the gold, the Athens silver winner Russia seemed to lose the fight against themselves again as the team, with poor mentality, was whacked by world No. 1 Brazil.
The Russians put up no real resistance in the 25-14, 25-14 and 25-16 defeat two days after Italian head coach Giovanni Caprara blamed their negative attitude.
"I think they didn't want to play," said Brazilian Sheilla Castro. "It seems they have a problem inside, but I don't know."
Russia captain and setter Marina Sheshenina, however, insisted they played better than in the 3-1 defeat against World Cup winner Italy on Saturday.
"It's a pity to lose again, but I think we played better than we did in the last match," she said at the post-match press conference. "We work as a team and nobody criticized us."
Head coach Caprara attributed the team's lackluster performance to the two-year absence at international stage.
"Our team and the Brazilian team had very different experience," he said. "They played a lot of high level international matches in the World Cup last year and World Grand Prix this year, while we did not qualify for either tournament."
The Russians must win the rest three preliminary matches to secure a quarterfinal berth if they still want to "win a medal".
In another two matches of the day, European rising star Serbia also harvest second victory by breezing past Olympic newcomer Algeria in straight sets and Japan beat another Olympic first-grader Venezuela .
Twelve teams are competing in two groups in the preliminary round with top four finishers from each group to qualify for the quarterfinals.
Host China is with Cuba, Japan, Poland, United States and Venezuela in Pool A, while Italy, Algeria, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia and Serbia are in Pool B. The knockout stage runs from Aug. 19 to 23.
(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2008)