Netherlands victorious again, Pool D defined, USA continue winning steak. Recap of Day 4!

POOL A @Florence
Japan – Belgium 1-3 (25-14, 23-25, 14-25, 19-25)
Belgium win, Japan to the edge, despite surprised the rivals at the start of the match. But, only in the first set, then Belgium set the control and got three very important points! Bram Van Den Dries was the top scorer, while on the other side Yuji Nishida scored 20 points. Belgium will definitely play in the second round while Japan is in a really difficult situation with one victory and three defeats.

Dominican Republic – Italy 0-3 (12-25, 18-25, 16-25)
No problem for Italy against Dominican Republic. Regarding this match simply, the Italian team is a much better. Osmany Juantorena with 17 points and Ivan Zaytsev with 12 points were the best players. Any other comment is superfluous.

Standings:
Italy 4-0 (12 points)
Slovenia 3-0 (8 points)
Belgium 2-2 (7 points)
Argentina 1-2 (3 points)
Japan 1-3 (3 points)
Dominican Republic 0-4 (0)

POOL B @Ruse
China – Egypt 1-3 (26-28, 24-26, 25-17, 21-25)
First victory for Egypt at the World Championship! It was a battle between two teams that suffered three defeats each out of three matches, but Egypt beat China in four sets! Ahmed Abdelhay Salah was the top scorer for Egypt with 20 points, while Chian Jiang scored 27 points on the other side. Egypt have some chances to qualify for the second round, but for Raul Lozano’s chinese team this is the end!

Netherlands – France 3-2 (23-25, 19-25, 25-21, 25-23, 15-13)
Another miracle for the Netherlands: victory also against France! After beating Brazil, the Netherlands have managed to defeat another candidate for the final round. It was not an easy match, because it was a great comeback by the Dutch side, who were behind by two sets but somehow managed to win the match in five sets. The first two sets went to the French team, who always had a control of the match, however, the Dutch team showed that winning the match against Brazil was not by accident.
Nimir Abdel Aziz was the author of a stunning match, with 31 points, while on the other side Stephen Boyer scored 21 points, followed by Earvin Ngapeth who added 17!

Standings:
Canada 3-0 (9 points)
Netherlands 3-1 (9 points)
France 2-2 (8 points)
Brazil 2-1 (5 points)
Egypt 1-3 (3)
China 0-4 (0)

POOL C @Bari
Cameroon – USA 0-3 (18-25, 20-25, 14-25)
USA continue winning, beating also Cameroon in three sets. USA have scored the fourth victory at the World Championship, and they didn’t have difficulties in this match. Matthew Anderson and Taylor Sander were the top scorers in the U.S. national team with 9 points each, while on the other side, David Feughouo scored 10 points.

Serbia – Australia 3-1 (25-20, 21-25, 25-17, 25-19)
Nikola Grbic’s side has recorded a very important win in Pool B. The Aussies again showed that they could be difficult rival. After taking the first set, Nikola Grbic’s team couldn’t stop a more aggressive opponent in the second set. However, at the end won experience: Serbia played much better in the third and the fourth set and clinched her third win in world championship. The blocker Srecko Lisinac was the top scorer with 18 points, followed by Nemanja Petric with 15 points. Max Staples had the best scoring performance in Australia: 12 points.

Standings:
USA 4-0 (10 points)
Serbia 3-1 (10 points)
Russia 2-1 (6 points)
Australia 1-2 (4 points)
Cameroon 1-3 (3)
Tunisia 0-3 (0)

POOL D @Varna
Puerto Rico – Finland 2-3 (19-25, 23-25, 29-27, 25-21, 10-15)
With this match, Finland take the ticket for the second round. Finland opened the match by winning the first set 25-19, however, in the other three sets, Puerto Rico gave a huge resistance, and leading the match to the tie-break. Elviss Krastins was the top scorer in Finland with 18 points, while on the other side, Maurice Torres, with 37 points, had the top scoring performance at this moment at the World Championship.

Cuba – Bulgaria 0-3 (22-25, 16-25, 18-25)
Bulgaria destroy Cuba and claim the second round! Cuba and Puerto Rico go to home after the first phase of the World Championship. Bulgaria didn’t have any difficulties in this match, scoring a convincing 3-0 victory! Nikolay Uchikov was thebtop scorer of the Bulgarian team with 17 points. On the other side, Miguel Suarez scored 13 points. After this match, we know certainly which teams are qualified to the second round from this Pool D, but we will have to wait until tomorrow to find out the final standings!