23-Nov, start time: 12:30, end time: 13:36 - Attendance: 3,000

USA	3	25	25	25	-	-	75
TUN	0	13	17	22	-	-	52

Match Description:

Efficient Americans Ease Past Tunisia
America took another step towards Olympic qualification when they produced a well-organized display to defeat Tunisia 3-0 in their opening Site A match at the World Cup of Volleyball in Fukuoka.

The North Africans had no answers to the efficiency of the American game and after going behind early in the opening set were forever chasing the NORCECA champions as they crashed to a 25-13, 25-17, 25-22 defeat.

While Tunisia are still searching for their first victory of the tournament - this was their sixth consecutive loss - the USA enjoy an impressive 5-1 playing record, though they will be acutely aware they still have many difficult matches ahead.

Tunisia have failed to live up to expectations since they impressed in their five-set loss to France and this result will have done little to help them off the bottom of the World Cup standings.

They made a sluggish start to the opening game in which the spiking of Riley Salmon and Clayton Stanley, and America's error-free serving, allowed the USA to comfortably open a 14-11 lead which they built on to see out the first set.

The North Africans were more competitive in the second set and brought the powerful spiking of Noureddine Hfaiedh and Khaled Belaid into play. They reached midway just 11-12 behind, before a series of errors, followed by four aces from Stanley, saw their resistance crumble as they slipped two sets behind.

Although Tunisia battled bravely to the end of a sloppy third set, they produced too many errors to seriously challenge their rivals as another Stanley spike sealed a USA win.

Comments:

GIACOBBE Antonio (TUN Head Coach)
" We failed to create our own game. We tried to change the match-rhythm, but couldn't find any rhythm. I think our team had a psychological problem, lacking mental toughness. USA didn't allow us to play our own game today."

GUIDARA Ghazi (TUN Captain)
" USA was a tough opponent, and their service and blocking were especially good. Because their service was good, we couldn't get into our rhythm. Compared to the opponent's good combination of blocking and defense, our serve reception leaves much to be desired."

BEAL Douglas (USA Head Coach)
" I felt pretty good about today's match, which was probably some of the best volleyball we've performed so far. We got pretty good plans for Tunisia. In the first set we made almost no mistakes, which gave us a good start for the match. In the second set Stanley's serves were terrific. Overall it was a good performance for the team."

BALL Lloy (USA Captain)
" We could maintain a good match-rhythm offensively, and display a good service as well. Today's result surely gave us momentum for tomorrow's match against Korea."

Official Result:

Match statistics (P-2) - PDF