Canada improves to 2-1, Cuba wins first

GDANSK, Poland, September 5, 2014 - Canada cruised past Egypt in straight sets (24-14, 25-19, 25-22) reducing drastically the chances of the winless African team of moving up to the second round of matches. The winners, who lost to Russia in their opening match, are now at 2-1 with four points, while the losers were kept at bay with a 0-3 win-loss record.

The Canadians overwhelmed their opponents in every aspect of the game with margins of 9-2 and 8-3 in the blocking and aces charts.

Gavin Schmitt spearheaded Canada with 17 points followed by John Gordon Perrin and Nicholas Hoag with 10 apiece. Egypt’s Ahmed Abdelhay finished with 14 points while Mamdouh Abdelrehim added 10.

Cuba 3, Korea 1

In Katowice, Cuba continued to dominate Korea at major tournaments as the Caribbean side outblocked the Asian team 15-4 to book their first victory after two initial losses (25-21, 23-25, 25-14, 25-22). Korea dropped also to 1-2 with 3 points to Cuba’s four.

It was the 41st victory for the Cubans in 42 meetings with Korea in major tournaments, including World Championships, World Leagues, World Cups and Olympic Games.

Felix Chapman recorded half of his 14 points via blocks as the second best scorer of Cuba behind Osmany Uriarte’s 17 tallies in the victory. Javier Jimenez and Rolando Cepeda chipped in with 12 and 10, respectively. Chul-Woo Park led Korea with 14 points in the losing effort.

Russia 3, Mexico 1

In the first match ever between Russia and Mexico at the World Championship, the European side had to recover from dropping the first set before sealing the victory.

Sergey Savin led four Russian players with double figures in the scoring charts with 18 points in the third triumph of the Olympic champions without losses. The score was 21-25, 25-20, 25-14, 25-17.

Pavel Moroz, Denis Biriukov and Artem Volvich contributed 13, 12 and 10 points, respectively, in the victory.  Mexico’s Daniel Vargas had a match-high 20 points and Carlos Guerra added 12 as their side suffered their third consecutive loss in as many outings in the competition.