TOKYO, 17 November 2003 — Olympic champions Serbia Montenegro powered their way through to a three-set victory over China in their bid to win an Athens Olympics berth at the World Cup men’s volleyball tournament yesterday.

The Serbian spikers, most of them from the Yugoslavia team that won the Sydney Olympics, took control from the very outset to score a 25-16, 25-16, 26-24 win over the Asian silver medalists. Other top guns, current and former world champions Brazil and Italy, European runners-up France and the United States also coasted to easy set wins in the 12-team round-robin, vying for the three tickets for the Olympics.

“We knew that the first two matches would be hard for us. Today, for the first two sets, our concentration was good, but not in the third set. That’s the problem we have in this team,” said Serbia’s coach Ljubomir Travica.

Ivan Miljkovic became the best scorer of his team by gaining 18 points, 16 of them with his powerful attacks from the height of 2.06 meters (about six feet seven inches).

“As is always the case for any competition, the first game is difficult for us. The team got together one month before — since the European championships — so it was difficult,” said Miljkovic.

“The first two sets were easy, but inside, we were very nervous. In the third set, we were more nervous. In the end, we were just luckier than China. Today, I don’t think the game was easy as the result says.”

Chinese coach Di Anhe said his side played a very strong team.

“We tried hard, but we could not do as well as we should have. It is very difficult to compete for the very first match.”

The Americans were 25-17, 25-17, 25-17 winners over Canada, while Japan downed wild card entrants Egypt 25-20, 25-17, 25-23.

In Nagano, the city of the 1998 Winter Olympics, Brazil pulverized South Korea 25-21, 25-19, 25-17, while Italy outgunned Tunisia 25-16, 25-13, 25-23 and France breezed past Venezuela 25-23, 25-21, 25-21. “We played well enough to win. I was anxious before the match, because it was our first match of the competition and we did not know too much about Tunisia,” said Italian coach Montali Gianpaolo.