Russia leads World Cup title race after upset win over USA

Former World Cup winners Russia hammered reigning world champions and tournament leaders the United States 3-0 here Friday afternoon to overtake the lead at the 2015 FIVB Women's World Cup with an 8-1 record and 24 points. World runners-up China and Serbia also reaped respective victories on Day Nine of the World Cup action to stay in the contention for the title and the tickets to the Rio Olympic Games.

The Russian women marched towards their first World Cup title since 1973 after surprisingly beat the Americans 25-17, 31-29 and 25-23 while the United States slipped to a 7-2 win-loss record.

Tatiana Kosheleva received the Most Impressive Player award thanks to her game-high 16 points performance for Russia. Yana Shcherban, Nataliya Obmochaeva and Irina Fetisova contributed 14 points each for Russia, who outblocked the United States 16-9.

Earlier on Friday, middle blocker Yang Junjing scored 14 points and Zhu Ting added 13 as China clean swept the Dominican Republic 3-0 for their sixth win in a row. With the 25-16, 25-17 and 25-19 victory, the Chinese women have now won all three World Cup encounters against the Dominican Republic and improved to an 8-1 win-loss record in the 12-team round robin tournament.

The Dominican Republic were obviously affected by the absence of Bethania de la Cruz. They stayed within 10-9 in the second set, but China surged away with a 9-4 run and never looked back. After giving out a total of 23 points through errors, the Dominican Republic slipped to a 4-5 win-loss record with two more matches in hand.

In Komaki, Stefana Veljkovic and Ana Bjelica led the Serbian hitters to gain a straight-set (25-22, 25-19, 25-15) surge over Cuba in the third round of the FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup at the Park Arena. Veljkovic and Bjelica recorded 10 points each for Serbia, while Daymara Lescay Cajigal and Heidy Margarita Rodriguez Lopez only managed to score six points each for Cuba. Serbian hitters had a field day as they outscored the Cubans by earning 42 points from the attack line.

Russia and China both had 24 points, but the Russian women led the standings ahead of China due to superior sets ratio. The Serbian team currently ranked third with 21 points from eight wins and a loss.

Also in Komaki, Argentina prevailed in their fierce encounter 3-2 (16-25, 25-20, 21-25, 25-22, 15-12) over South American rivals Peru. Argentina had an up-and-down tempo in the match but their captain Emilce Sosa delivered the crucial points that helped them nail the five-set victory.

Sosa finished with 19 points, while Peruvian top scorer Katherine Regalado also delivered 19 markers.

Meanwhile, Kim Yeon-koung converted on 20 of her 31 spiking opportunities to lead South Korea to a 3-0 (21-16, 21-16, 21-19) rout of African champions Kenya. Kim Yeon-koung also received the Most Impressive Player award with Kim Hee-jin adding 12 points through 11 kills and one block. Mercy Moim was the top scorer of Kenya with 10.

In the last match of Day Nine, Yuki Ishii had 10 kills and three aces to lead the hosts Japan past winless Algeria 3-0 (25-8, 25-10, 25-6) for their seventh World Cup victory at the Nippongaishi Hall in Nagoya.

Bouncing back from Tuesday's full-set loss to Serbia, the Japanese team produced 11 aces on their way to the victory and improved to a 7-2 win-loss record in the 12-team round robin tournament. Algeria has failed to win one set in their nine consecutive losses. Endi