• Submitted by: admin
• Sports
• 11 / 18 / 2006

Brazil men's volleyball players opened defense of their title at the 2006 men's volleyball World Championship with a 3-1 victory over Cubaon Friday.

Brazil overcame a low start to beat Cuba 21-25, 25-19, 25-15, 25-22 in the opener of Group B.

"It was our first match and it was a tense match," said Brazil's head coach Bernardo Rezende, "Cuba lost an important player (Osmany Juantorena) but they played a very good match and were particularly good at defence. They made fewer mistakes than us in the first set.Maybe we were under a bit of pressure."

Brazil committed several unforced errors against Cuba. The sloppy first set featured five service errors and several attacking errors of the defending champion.

Tumbling in the second set, Brazil eventually went ahead 9-8 and then took a two-point advantage at 13-11 following Cuba's two mistakes.

Brazil then took control of the set, improving their advantage to 21-16 before Gustavo Endres took it to set point with a block. Cuba saved one set point but then handed Brazil the set when Robertlandy Simon sent his spike long.

The following two sets were much easier for the defending champion, as they took an early lead and extend their advantage to the last of the match.

"It is important to beat Cuba and we must improve in our service, blocking and create more chances to counter-attack because that will be important for championship." said Rezende.

In the men's tournament, Brazil will play in Pool B with

Germany, Cuba, Greece, Franceand Australia. Pool A is comprised of Egypt, Puerto Rico, Poland, China, Argentina and Japan.

In Pool C it's Czech Republic, Italy, UnitedStates, Venezuela, Bulgaria and Iran, and Pool D is made up of Russia, Tunisia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Korea and Serbia and Montenegro.