Hiroshima, Japan, November 8, 2011 – The 2010 and 2011 World Grand Prix champions USA continued their impressive start to the FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Cup with their fourth win from as many matches on Tuesday to stay top of the standings with the full complement of 12 points followed by Italy on 11 and China on nine.

The World Cup, which offers tickets to the London Olympic Games to the three medallists, continues until November 18 after each of the 12 teams team has played each other once, offering three points for a 3-0 or 3-1 win (a 3-2 result gives two points to the winner and one to the loser). The men’s tournament follows in Japan from November 20 to December 4.

USA, ranked No. 2 in the world, maintained their unbeaten record with a 3-0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-21) win over Kenya at Toyama City Gymnasium. The victory was USA’s seventh out of seven matches against the Africa champions who, ranked 17th in the world, once again showed they can perform well against top teams. Megan Hodge picked up the Most Impressive Player award after top-scoring for the US with 20 points, including five aces. Veterans Tayyiba Haneef-Park and Danielle Scott-Arruda contributed 13 and nine respectively. Kenya were led by captain Brackcides Khadambi with 12 points. USA out served Kenya 11-3.

“I’m very happy with the win today,” USA coach Hugh McCutcheon said. “Obviously, in the World Cup every win is important and valuable. I thought Kenya were much improved and certainly hit the ball in the court a lot and dug a lot of balls. It was not an easy match but my team stayed focused and that was important.”

Also in Toyama, Brazil dropped a crucial point after Korea gave the world No. 1 a huge scare, taking the Olympic champions to five sets before Brazil prevailed 3-2 (22-25, 25-18, 18-25, 25-13, 15-8). Brazil could have been equal with China on nine points but their three wins and one defeat has registered eight points thanks to the 3-2 result against Korea, who collected their first point of the tournament. Korea’s Kim Yeon-Koung collected the Most Impressive Player award with a tournament record 29 points, earlier matched by the Dominican Republic’s Bethania De La Cruz de Peña against China. The only other Korean player to get to double figures was Hwang Youn-Joo with 19. Brazil had four players in double figures: Sheilla Castro (19), Paula Pequeno (15), Thaisa Menezes (13) and Marianne Steinbrecher (12).

“We played like the real Brazil in the fourth and fifth sets. I didn’t like our performance in the first, second and third sets. We made many mistakes – some like kids,” Brazil coach Ze Roberto said. “We have to play better every time; it’s an important tournament. It’s always difficult to play Korea because they have good technique and good spikers, but I’m not happy because we didn’t play well.” 

Meanwhile, defending champions Italy continued their excellent start with their fourth win from as many matches after a relatively easy (25-19, 25-10, 25-19) victory over Argentina at the Hiroshima Sun Plaza. Italy had a fairly balanced attack on the day as Simona Gioli collected 14 points while the tournament’s leading scorer after the first round Carolina del Pilar Costagrande and 17-year-old Caterina Bosetti, playing her first full game for the national team with older sister Lucia, posted 10 apiece. For Argentina, who had never beaten Italy in four previous matches, Florencia Natasha Busquets notched seven points.

Earlier, a tournament high 29 points from De La Cruz couldn’t stop the Dominican Republic going down to three-time champions China 3-1 (23-25, 25-13, 25-19, 25-18). Coming off an emotional high from a five-set thriller on Sunday against rivals Japan, China started slowly for the third time in four matches by conceding the first set against a side they had only lost once to in 14 previous encounters but eventually went on to win with Hui Ruoqi (16), and Yang Junjing (14) and Wang Yimei (14) sharing the scoring.

In the last matches of the day, Japan moved up to sixth on seven points with a two:win two:loss record following a straight sets win (25-8, 25-10, 25-17) over Algeria, repeating their World Championship result last year while Algeria equalled the lowest score of the tournament registered by Korea against USA on day three. Germany, meanwhile, took revenge for their defeat by Serbia in the final of the European Championship with a 3-2 (25-22, 24-26, 25-23, 23-25, 15-11) win in the Toyama City Gymnasium in the highest scoring match to date.