Recap of Day 3! First Round of World Championship.

POOL A @ Florence
Japan – Slovenia 1:3 (20:25, 25:22, 20:25, 13:25)
Slovenia has scored another victory! After the first two sets, the result was clear and the Slovenian side started playing at a much higher level, destroying the Japanese defense and winning the match in four sets. Tine Urnaut finished the match with 19 points and was the top scorer, followed by Mitja Gasparini with 12, Jan Kozamernik with 11 and Alen Pajenk with 10 points. In Japan, Yuki Ishikawa was the top scorer with 15 points, followed by Tatsuya Fukuzuwa with 10.

Argentina – Dominican Republic 3:0 (26:24, 25:15, 25:15)
Argentina survive first set against Dominican Republic and won 3-0. This is the first victory of Argentina at the World Championship, and surely was an important result for Julio Velasco’s team, that easily take the other two sets. Best scorer of the match was Cristian Poglajen with 12 points, followed by Sebastian Sole 11, like Santana and Capellan each on the other side.

POOL B @ Ruse
China – Netherlands 1:3 (21:25, 13:25, 25:23, 25:16)
First victory also for the Netherlands at the World Championship, even if it seems that the Chinese performed much better against France than in this match. Three sets were a total catastrophe and now for Raul Lozano’s team will very hard to send the team to the next round. In the other side, this victory was very important for the Dutch, ‘cause they are staying in the race for the second round of the competition. Nimir Abdel-Aziz was the top scorer with 22 points, followed by Thijs Ter Horst with 19. For China, Chuan Jiang ended the match with 20 points.

France – Egypt 3:0 (25:22, 25:23, 25:16)
France beat Egypt without lot of difficult and achieved the second win at World Championship, playing the match without Earvin Ngapeth and Kevin Le Roux. Laurent Tillie’s team now topped the standings with 7 points and one match in advance than Canada and Brazil. Great match for Thibault Rossard, also top scorer with 13 points. Jean Patry added 12, while on the other side Ahmed Abdelhay Salah signed 13 points.

POOL C @ Bari
Australia – Cameroon 3:1 (21:25, 25:17, 25:22, 25:20)
Australia won and needed four sets to defeat Cameroon in their third game at the World Championship. It seems that this is the end for Africans, because they have only two more matches to play at this World Championship. The only hope is if they beat Russia and the USA, and in your opinion, it’s possible?
In the other side, Australia need one more win to secure the second round, and they also have two more matches to play, against Serbia and Tunisia. In this match the top scorer was Lincoln Alexander Williams with 22 points, and for Cameroon David Patrick Feughouo had 13 points.

Russia – Tunisia 3:0 (25:19, 25:6, 25:19)
In the second set Tunisia realized 6 points in total…do we need to tell you more about this match? Russia, destroyed Tunisia in straight set. Maxim Mikhailov was the top scorer with 11 points, while Egor Kliuka added 10 points. For Tunisia, Hamza Nagga ended the match with 9 points.

POOL D @ Varna
Finland – Cuba 3:1 (25:19, 25:19, 20:25, 25:16)
Cuba won olny one set, and Finland was victorious! So, also Finland have scored the first victory at the men’s volleyball World Championship. This victory keeps Finland in the race for the next round, while for Cuba is a problem, even if they have three other matches to play. The South Americans only in the third set managed to increase their level of play and forcing the match into the fourth sets. But Finland wanted to avoid the tie-break. At the end, three players from Finland had the same number of points: Urpo Sivula, Markus Kauro and Antti Makinen with 12 points each, while for Cuba Miguel David Gutierrez Suarez had 17.

Bulgaria – Puerto Rico 3:0 (25:16, 25:18, 25:21)
Easy win for Bulgaria, and now is hard for Puerto Rico, now far from advancing to the World Champs second round. Bulgaria have scored the second win at the World Championship after the bad defeat against Iran. The co-host of the World Champs didn’t have any difficulties in this match. Top scorer of the match were Nikola Penchev with 14 points followed by Nikolay Uchikov with 11, like Pablo Guzman on the other side.