Japan, USA, Brazil on full points after Day 2 of VNL

Japan, USA and Brazil all retained perfect records (though Brazil have dropped one set) after Day 2, Wednesday, of the 2021 FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League at Italy's Adriatic resort of Rimini.

But with just five teams out of the 16 total remaining undefeated after two matches, the race to make the top four of the single round-robin League Rounds and a ticket to next month's semifinals is already intensifying.

• Check out the full standings

Defending champions USA rallied from a five-point deficit at 17-22 to draw level at 22-22 and go on to take the first set before eventually cruising to a 3-0 win over Canada.

The 2019 VNL MVP Annie Drews, who had not played in the opening match against the Dominican Republic, started the match against Canada and scored a match high 20 points.

Earlier in the day, Japan had crushed rivals China in the Asian classic, relentlessly battering their opponents for a 3-0 sweep in well under and hour and a half.

Despite lagging in blocking, Japan served seven aces to China's none, as Mayu Ishikawa scored the match high of 18 points with Ai Kurogo adding another 17.

With a changed lineup, that saw the return of Roberta Ratzke in setting and featured 39-year-old Carol Gattaz (the tournament's oldest player) as a starter, Brazil smashed the Dominican Republic in straight sets.

Coach Ze Roberto also briefly gave a bit of time on the court to his youngest player, 17-year-old Ana Cristina Souza, as Fe Garay topped the scoring on 14 points.

Russia are also undefeated, but only after surviving a mighty scare when they found themselves two sets down to Belgium before picking up to stage the first full comeback of the tournament.

It was the entry into the match of 17-year-old Arina Fedorovtseva to replace Tatyana Kosheleva that shook things up a bit, despite the best efforts of Britt Herbots, who bagged the tournament's high scoring with 29 points to keep Belgium very much in contention through to the end.

Nataliya Goncharova scored 24 points and sits atop the list of the tournaments best scorers on 44 points after three matches - just two more than Herbots who is third in the ranking.

• Check out the individual rankings of players

And Turkey too doubled up their victories, with a very solid 3-0 sweep of hosts Italy on the back of 12 points each by Eda Erdem and Hande Baladin.

Serbia, meanwhile, are showcasing in Rimini a brilliant new generation with potential to turn into huge stars. They're certainly not there yet, but once they're ready they'll instill fear into any opponent they come across.

And though Poland were totally unconvincing in Wednesday's match there's no denying that Serbia's youngsters were once again an absolute joy to watch.

Once the first set was over, Serbia scattered Poland in the remaining three, Sara Lazo delivering the final strike with an unreturnable cross-court hit.

Sara Caric was again on top form and scored 21 points which brings her just one shy of Goncharova in the overall list.

In other matches, Germany stunned the Netherlands after five dramatic sets, including a 30-28 for the Dutch affair in the third, which is the tournament high so far (though short of the all-time VNL high of 33-31 from the Korea v Brazil match of 2018).

Lina Alsmeier came off the bench to start the last four sets and led the scoring for Germany with 18 points, though the match high of 25 belonged to the Netherlands' Nika Daalderop.

And Korea came back from a set down to dominate Thailand in four. In the absence for this match of Kim Yeon-Koung, Park Jeongah took over scoring responsibilities and registered the match high of 22.

• Check out the full results and details of all matches, plus remaining schedule