Four teams in Guadalajara vying for two tickets to Italy 2010
Guadalajara, Mexico, August 27, 2009 – Four men’s teams will battle in a Playoff Round here this weekend vying for the last two NORCECA tickets available to the Final Round of the FIVB World Championship next year in Italy.
Hosts Mexico, Canada and Dominican Republic (the second-place teams from three third round tournaments) are joined by Panama (the best third-place side from those events). Puerto Rico, Cuba and United States have already booked their spots in Italy as NORCECA representatives.
Four women teams to vie for last two Asian tickets to Japan
Chia Yi, Chinese Taipei, August 25, 2009 — The last two Asian tickets to the finals of the 2010 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Championship in Japan will be decided from August 28-30 in Taipei as Kazakhstan, Korea, New Zealand and host Chinese Taipei compete in Pool E of the third round.
The four teams will play a round-robin format at Chia Yi City Gymnasium, where the top two teams will advance to Japan, following China and Thailand, which secured their berths in July in Chengdu, China after finishing 1-2 in Pool D.
Germany scores first easy victory against Mexico
Berlin, Germany, August, 21, 2009 – Germany secured tonight the first of two matches serving as qualifier for the 2010 FIVB World League without any major problems. The team of Argentinean head coach Raúl Lozano defeated tonight Mexico in three straight sets (25-18; 25-20; 25-16) at the Max-Schmeling-Halle in front of 850 spectators. Thanks to this result, the Germans will have to score two sets in the second match scheduled for tomorrow at 4 p.m. to reach the second and final Qualification Round against Venezuela. Best scorers were tonight Björn Andrae (16) and Jochen Schöps (13) for the home team and Gerardo Contreras and Gustavo Meyer (10) for Mexico.
Brazil stretches invincibility, in-form Japan tastes first win with a bang
Tokyo, Japan, August 21, 2009 – Brazil has turned an indomitable giant not to be toppled easily in the 2009 FIVB World Grand Prix Final Round following their convincing straight-set 25-15 25-15 25-16 victory over Germany on Friday, as determined Japan pulled off a stunning win over the Netherlands.
On a day when the Dutchwomen failed to make their mark, devastating Brazil continued their unbeaten run. The scintillating win over Germany on Friday has stretched Brazil’s aura of invincibility to 12 in a row including three in the single round-robin Final Round at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
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United States qualifies for World Championship by beating Dominicans
Irvine, California, August 17, 2009 – The United States qualified for the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championships in Italy with a 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-15) victory over Dominican Republic on Monday at the Bren Center of University of California Irvine.
Team USA finished the tournament with a 3-0 record. Dominican Republic finished 2-1 and will travel to Guadalajara, Mexico later this month for a last chance at qualifying in a playoff tournament.
Czech Republic joins Bulgaria and qualifies for Italy 2010
Varna, Bulgaria, August 16, 2009. After Bulgaria had pretty much secured for itself one of the two tickets for the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championship during the previous competition days in Varna, the Czech Republic and The Netherlands had to enter an indirect battle for the second spot. Portugal also had its slim chances and decided to put them to the test. The Southwestern Europeans put the Czech Republic on a real roller-coaster before letting them have their way in the first match of the day. The Czechs completely walked over Portugal in sets 1, 3 and 5, but allowed their opponents to come back twice and maintain the drama in the game. Opposite David Konecny was once again the one with the best contribution for the win by scoring 19 points, while Flavio Cruz topped the Portuguese chart with 14 points. The Czechs registered a second victory in this tournament and had to wait for the outcome of the last match between Bulgaria and Holland before finding out if they would travel to Italy 2010.
Serbia and Spain join the entry list for the final round of the 2010 Worlds
Kragujevac, Serbia, August 16, 2009. As it was expected, the two pre-favorite teams managed to qualify for the final round of the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championship after two days of competition at the tournament being currently staged in Kragujevac. This afternoon Spain had to go all the way through up to the fifth set to beat a promising Romanian team 3-2 (25-17, 23-25, 21-25, 27-25, 15-13), and Serbia easily broke the Estonian defense to win 3-0 (25-15, 25-23, 25-22) in front of 3100 spectators at the “Jezero” Hall of Sports.
The reigning European champions of Spain had to dig deep to overcome all sort of problems that the Romanian team put in front of them, but at the end they managed to complete the mission of having two victories in the first two competition days.
