• Submitted by: admin
• Sports
• 11 / 22 / 2006

The male volleyball teams of Brazil and Cuba classified for the second phase of the male World Championship, which is being held in several Japanese cities. Brazil beat Australia and Cuba got the victory versus Greece.

Brazil had lost their unbeaten record in the tournament against France Sunday, but now they beat the "Aussie" team 3-0 (25-19, 25-19, 25-23) in a match corresponding to Pool B in the city of Fukuoka.

Brazil's head coach Bernardo Rezende gave participation to all his players, to keep his regular line-up fresh for the match in the preliminary phase against Germany, the only undefeated team in the tournament now.

Central blocker Rodrigo Santana (Rodrigao), the tallest Brazilian player, did not open the match but also central Gustavo Endres and digger Ricardinho played the whole match.

Andre Heller and Gilberto Godoy got 10 and 8 points respectively, and Daniel Howard got 13 points for Australia.

Germany gave the surprise of the day beating France 3-1 (22-25, 25-21, 28-26 and 25-22), just to show that their victory against Cuba was not casual. Marcus Popp (17), Bjorn Andrae (16), Christian Pampel (14) and Ralph Bergmann (11) were the best for the Germans, while Guillaume Samica (20) and Frantz Granvorka (18) were the best scorers for France.

Cuba worked hard to beat Greece 3-2 (25-19, 20-25, 25-22, 21-25, 15-12) with Raydel Corrales as the best scorer for the Cuban team, followed by Yasser Portuondo (20) and Osdelvis Dominico (15).

The matches for Wednesday are: Brazil-Germany and Cuba-France.

The teams of Poland and Japan classified for Pool A, Bulgaria and Italy for Pool C, and Serbia Montenegro, Russia and Canada for Pool B.

Source: Prensa Latina