Italy and the United States emerged as the luck birds in Nagoya on Thursday when both teams secured their berths at the Beijing Olympics with the last round to go at the women's volleyball World Cup.

Playing without injured captain Eleonora Lo Bianco but with former Cuba star Taismary Aguero in the line-up, the European champions Italy landed their tenth victory in a row with a 27-25, 25-19 and 25-16 win over Cuba to seal a top-three finish.

"I think we played a good match. We have improved day by day," said Italy coach Massimo Barbolini. "This year we played very well and we are very, very happy because it is the first time that the Italian team obtained qualification for the Olympic Games in the first round."

With superb points win-loss ratio in hands and only the United States to conquer in the 12-team round-robin tournament, the Italians were in a great position to win their first World Cup title.

"Tomorrow we play the United States and we have to try to win the World Cup," Barbolini added.

The hard-fought first set proved to be decisive in the big match. Cuba erased a 22-17 deficit to pull off 24-22 and went on to take the lead at 25-24, but Simona Gioli then came up with two big plays, saving a Cuban set point with a stylish winner before blocking Kenia Carcaces to bring up Italy's fourth set point at 26-25. A net touch gave Italy the opener 27-25.

The last two sets were dominated by the Italians, who reaped a total of 24 points through Cuban errors.

Lang Ping

US coach Lang Ping from China made sure she would make her third trip to the Olympics after leading the United States to a 25-17, 25-14 and 25-20 rout of Japan Thursday evening.

Having dropped only one match in 10 tries, the Americans will still have a tiny hope of winning the trophy if they can beat Italy with big margins on Friday.

"I felt relieved," said Lang Ping. "We have only four days together to prepare for the tournament and some of our players have been playing with old injuries, but they worked really hard and I am proud of them."

"China is a great team and I am a Chinese, I think the Chinese people will be very proud of me because I will bring another great team back to my home," added Lang, who had won a gold in the Los Angeles Games in 1984 as a player and a silver in the Atlanta Games in 1996 as coach of the Chinese team.

Earlier on Thursday, Brazil produced an outstanding performance to demolish Serbia 3-0, moving one step closer to the other Olympic ticket on offer.

Obviously motivated by their heavy loss to Italy the previous day, the South American champions sent shell-shocked Serbia spinning to a straight-sets defeat 25-13, 25-14 and 25-21.

The Brazilians, who improved to an 8-2 record, can secure its qualification with a win over Japan on Friday.

Serbia and Cuba, who will clash with each other on Friday, still have a chance to win the third place on condition that Brazil loses to Japan.

(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2007)