Brazil secure first ticket to Men's VNL Final Four

Brazil became the first team to secure a ticket to the semifinals of the 2021 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League after defeating Italy, Monday, on the opening day of the last week of pool play and advance beyond the reach of the other contenders for the Final Four, as the competition continues at Italy's Adriatic resort of Rimini.

Poland also advanced to 11-3 and remain second in the standings, but Slovenia never cease to amaze at this VNL and remain firmly in third place with two rounds of pool play remaining.

Brazil had so many solutions, with three players scoring in the twenties - Ricardo Lucarelli on 21, Wallace de Souza and Yoandy Leal on 20 each - but they still struggled against a feisty and passionate young Italian side whose blocking frustrated the South Americans.

The reigning Olympic champions shot off quickly to a great start, but it took them eight set points to finish the second with an ace by Lucarelli on Francesco Recine - one of the Brazilians' three aces in the game.

Italy did pull one back, but in general Brazil tackled the problem with serving that threw off the home side.

And reigning world champions Poland had little difficulty in disposing of Argentina in an hour and a half as they delivered seven aces (to one) with Kamil Semeniuk emerging top scorer of the game on 13 points.

The Poles keep hot on the pursuit of Brazil and are set to mathematically secure their own ticket to the semifinals on Tuesday, when they face Iran.

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Slovenia twice came back from a set down and rallied in the fourth to cancel two match points of USA for a four-set finish, as Jan Kozamernik delivered a thundering ace on Thomas Jaeschke to bring Slovenia ahead and another by Gregor Ropret on Taylor Sander to force a tie-break.

Then, Slovenia came from behind in the fifth to just edge past the Americans, top scorer of the match on 27 points Klemen Cebulj putting the ball away for the last point, off the hands of Matt Anderson.

Earlier, USA had fended off two set points of Slovenia before closing the first on their own fourth attempt with a quick kill by Sander from the middle.

This leaves VNL rookies Slovenia in third place of the standings, poised and ready to punch their ticket to the Final Four in their last remaining matches against Japan and Bulgaria.

France, Russia and Serbia, meanwhile, are all racing to catch up and claim their own spots in the semifinals after their wins on Monday.

France were back on a full lineup and coach Laurent Tillie made few substitutions as they shut out Iran - Stephen Boyer contributing the match high of 17 points and Nicolas Le Goff strong on the block with four stuffs.

And Russia took their foot off the pedal for a minute allowing Germany to pull back the third set, but continued to a four-set victory, inspired by a match high of 18 points by Maxim Mikhaylov and intense overall serving that yielded eight aces (to Germany's none).

Even with a few changes to their regular starting lineup, Serbia didn't have too much trouble in disposing of Australia though with more reserves coming in during the match they did drop the third set before wrapping it up in four.

Petar Krsmanovic stuffed the Australians seven times (out of Serbia's total 11 blocks), served three aces and attacked for 71% (5/7), while Aleksandar Atanasijevic brought in the match high of 19 points with 66% (19/29) in attack.

With Yuji Nishida back in action and contributing an impressive match high of 23 points in just three sets, Japan swept Bulgaria aside.

Japan advanced to 7-6 though it comes a bit too late in the race for the Final Four.

In other VNL action on Monday, the Netherlands were playing without the tournament's overall top scorer Nimir Abdel-Aziz who was off the squad due to injury and promptly lost in straight sets to Canada.

Canada were dominant across the board, with highly successful attacking at 62% (42/68), superior in blocking with 11 stuffs (four by Graham Vigrass) and commanding in service with five aces (four by Nicholas Hoag). Sharone Vernon-Evans collected the match high of 14 points after attacking for 79% (11/14).

With Nimir out off action, Cebulj has now closed in in the race to become overall top scorer of the competition and could well catch up in the remaining matches to cover the 46 points now separating the two.

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