Italy's players celebrate after scoring a point against Brazil during the competition at the FIVB Volleyball World Cup 2007 in Nagoya, Japan, Nov. 14, 2007. Italy beat Brazil 3-0. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    NAGOYA, Japan, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- European champion Italy hammered Brazil in straight sets here on Wednesday for its ninth straight win at the 2007 women's volleyball World Cup.

    With the 25-20, 25-23 and 25-19 victory, the Italians secured atop three finish at the round-robin competition and a berth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

    They were also in a very good position to win their title ever in the quadrennial tournament.

    "We have taken another important step to qualifying for Beijing," said Italy head coach Massimo Barbolini. "Our players played a perfect match against one of the strongest teams in the world.

    "We have played a very good match in defense, and they paid good attention to not making mistakes."

    Italy reaped a total of nine points from blocking, compared with two for Brazil.

    It was hotly contested early with both teams playing efficient attacks. However, Brazil suddenly lost the steam towards the end of the first set.

    After a Paula Pequeno kill pulled the Brazilians within 21-20, Antonella Del Core had a fine spike to make it 22-20 before two consecutive Brazilians errors and a smash of Francesca Piccinini awarded the opener to Italy.

    The Brazilians, who had lost only to the United States in their last eight matches, fought back strongly on their way to building a 19-15 cushion in the second set.

    But the Italians answered with a 5-0 run to overtake the lead at 20-19 and held on to make it two sets to nil.

    In the third set, Italy jumped to an 8-2 lead and improved to 15-8. Struggling to find their form, the Brazilians managed to cut it to 15-13 on back of some smart serves of Sheilla Castro, only to see Italy pull away again with a 4-1 burst.

    Taismary Aguero scored 19 points to lead the Italians, who were playing without regular starting setter Eleonora Lo Bianco.

    "(Francesca) Ferretti played in place of me and I want to thank her and congratulate her and the other players," said Lo Bianco. "I did not play because I had a small back problem."

    "Lo Bianco, with Fofao, is the best setter in the world, and we are fortunate to have a good second setter (Ferretti), who played a very good match and was helped a lot by her players," said Barbolini.

    Brazilian coach Jose Guimaraes brought all her players to the press conference, as a "punishment".

    "It is very difficult for me to say anything after such a bad match. I feel ashamed," said Guimaraes.

    "I have never seen such bad play as today. It is true that Italy played very well, but our performance was so bad. I want to apologize to the people who watched this game.

    "I have to admit that our performance was one of the worst in this series. Throughout the match the pace was set by the Italian team," said Brazil captain Helia Fofao.

    "They produced a very stable performance and played their own game. We could not display half of what we have," said she.

Brazil's Walewska (R) spikes the ball during the match against Italy at the FIVB Volleyball World Cup 2007 in Nagoya, Japan, Nov. 14, 2007. Brazil lost to Italy 0-3. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

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