Seven-time World Grand Prix champion Brazil romped past European runner-up Serbia 3-0 here on Wednesday for its third consecutive straight-sets win at the women's volleyball preliminaries of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Following easy victories over Algeria and Russia, the Brazilians continued to show their dominance in the 25-15, 25-13 and 25-23 sweep of the Serbian women, who stunned the world by winning the bronze medal at the 2006 World Championships.
Even Roberto Guimaraes, who led Brazil to the victory in the 2008 World Grand Prix Finals in July, was surprised by his players' superb performance.
"We are in good shape, but we did not expect to win over Russia and Serbia this way," said Guimaraes.
"We have improved our blocking, defense and serving since the World Grand Prix final round and I don't know what else we can improve on," he added, "I just hope that we can keep playing like this."
Despite their impressive performance so far, the Brazilians can not afford being over-optimistic, according to Guimaraes.
"There is a risk that the players would think it is easy (to win) , we must stop that from happening," he added, "We have to forget the victory and focus on our next match against Kazakhstan."
Going down tamely in the first two sets, Serbia fought hard in the third to cut its early 15-10 deficit to one to pull within 24-23, only to see Fabiana Claudino jump high in the middle for a solid kill to wind up the match in 67 minutes.
Serbia head coach Zoran Terzic looked frustrated at the post-match press conference.
"Brazil played an extraordinary game. It is difficult to say how much the result is our fault and why Brazil was so good," said Terzic, "There are some things we didn't do as we planned. Others we did as best as we could, but Brazil know how to neutralize that."
"It's awful that we always start 0-2 against Brazil," Terzic added, "We played better in the third set, but that's not enough."
Sheilla Castro led Brazil with 15 points and Paula Pequeno had six blocks to add 13 for the South Americans.
"It's really a good sensation when you make a block. In this match I was able to do it a lot," said Pequeno.
The Brazilians, who have never won a gold medal in the "Big Three" tournaments, namely Olympics, World Championships and World Cup, were in a very good position to finish top of preliminary pool B with one more tough match to play against Italy on Sunday.
"We still have a long way to go to get the gold but we also have many opportunities," said Walewska Oliveira, who contributed 11 points for Brazil, "We will reach the final, step by step."
Twelve teams are competing in two preliminary groups with top four finishers from each group to qualify for the quarter-finals.
(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2008)