Brazil, Poland march towards men's VNL Final Four

RIMINI: Brazil and Poland marched towards the men's Volleyball National League semifinals after sweeping respective opponents here. Brazil eased past Australia 25-17, 25-22 and 25-12 for their 11th victory in 12 fixtures with Isac Santos and Mauricio Silva contributing 11 points apiece. With three matches remaining for each team in the 16-team round-robin preliminaries, Brazil led the standings with 32 points.

Poland beat Germany 25-22, 25-19 and 25-20 to improve to a 10-2 win-loss record. Bartosz led the Polish scoring with 16 points.

"Germany played today a really nice game. They served really well and we were a little bit surprised with their starting six that went out to the court, but we won so it's good for us. Now we have three days off and I hope we will use it well," said Piotr Nowakowski, who had seven points for Poland.

Slovenia rallied past Iran 14-25, 25-20, 25-19 and 32-30 for their ninth win in 12 matches. Poland and Slovenia stood second and third, followed by Russia, France and Serbia.

Also on Thursday, Argentina beat Serbia 3-0, Russia tamed Bulgaria 3-0, Canada overcame Japan 3-0, the United States twice rallied from one set down to beat the Netherlands 3-2 and Italy outlasted France 3-2.

The 16 teams will have three days off with the action to resume on Monday with the top four finishers from the preliminaries to qualify for the semifinals. Agencies

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