Team Brazil has confirmed its dominant status with four straight wins in four matches in the Macau round of the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) at the Galaxy Arena from May 28 to June 2.
The South Americans, currently second in the world ranking, defeated Japan, the Netherlands, Italy and Thailand.
In the last match yesterday afternoon, Brazil won comfortably over Thailand (3-0) with the Asians only leveling the score in the first set (25-22).
The Brazilian players were most dominant in their second game, winning comfortably 25-14.
On the previous day, the Brazilians struggled to beat Italy (3-2), having to recover from a disadvantage (of 1-2).
Similarly, Brazil encountered a strong Japan in their first Macau match, on Day 1 (May 28) winning with the minimum advantage (3-2) and, as with Italy, saw themselves initially losing (1-2).
Despite the difficulties posed by Italy and Japan, Brazil leaves Macau for the next round with the same ranking position and with 382.13 points.
Turkey currently leads the world ranking with 385.71 points.
In the Macau round, and despite the loss (2-3) to Brazil in their first match, Japan scored important points, securing three wins in the following three matches with the highlight being the win (3-1) to China.
The results put Japan in seventh position in the World Ranking with 329.62 points.
In the event’s last match, Italy beat China 3-0 securing the 5th position in the World Ranking with 349.21 points.
Italy scored three dominant wins (3-0) in Macau against France, the Dominican Republic, and China, only losing in the decisive tiebreaker with Brazil.
China ended Week 2 in 6th position overall with two wins (over the Netherlands and Thailand) and another two defeats with Japan and Italy.
While the last score was not so costly, in ranking terms, as Italy was already classified in a higher position, the defeat against Japan raised the Japanese one position in the rankings from 8th to 7th making it a threat to China’s 6th place.
France’s ranking dropped significantly in Macau, with four defeats against Italy, Japan, Thailand and the Netherlands.
France’s three defeats (against Italy, Japan and Netherlands) were by 3-0, sending France down to 19th position in the World Ranking (a drop of four positions).
The only match in which the Europeans were close to scoring a win was against Thailand when they lost by the minimum margin (2-3) and when they made an impressive comeback after losing (0-2) and managed to balance the score to 2-2.
The VNL moves now to Fukuoka, Japan, where a new series of matches will start tomorrow (June 4).
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