China sent Japan to the edge with a 25-19, 25-27, 25-18, 25-18 victory to silence a vociferous local crowd while Serbia took a big step towards the London Olympics when it whipped Australia in the men's volleyball qualifying tournament yesterday.

"I'm happy with the performance of our players. Our mental and technical performance was much better than in our loss to Serbia yesterday. The team recovered well from that," said China coach Zhou Jianan.

The victory moved China to 2-2, while Japan slid to 2-2 with the loss. Chen Ping registered a match-high 18 points. Zhang Chen added 17 points. Kunihiro Shimizu was the leading scorer for Japan with 16 points.

"The Japanese are always superior in receiving of serves, but we have the height advantage," added Zhou, whose players scored 11 points by blocking Japanese attacks, compared to just four by Japan.

In a top-of-the-table battle, European Champions Serbia scored three straight sets (25-18, 25-19, 25-18) victory over Australia to remain unbeaten. The win moved Serbia to 4-0, while Australia fell to 3-1 with the loss.

Two tickets to the London Games are available in the eight-team competition.