Rome, Italy June 26, 2016 – USA won their third match of the weekend in Rome as they downed hosts Italy 3-0 (25-22, 25-23, 25-23) in the FIVB Volleyball World League with Thomas Jaeschke scoring a joint match-high 14 points together with Italy's Luca Vettori.
USA victory was built on the block as Italy experienced many difficulties to overcome it. Ivan Zaytsev was substituted through the match, as he suffered more than the other spikers. USA showed a growth during the weekend, up to the closing match, played at an high-level quality to deny Italy to finish the weekend with three victories.
The first set saw an aggressive start by coach John Speraw’s team with serving and blocking. Italy were a little bit shy at the beginning, maybe influenced by the warmth of the audience. Gianlorenzo Blengini understood his winger spikers’ difficulties and substituted both of them (Ivan Zaytsev and Filippo Lanza) with Gabriele Maruotti and Oleg Antonov, to change something also psychologically. Simone Giannelli leaned on Luca Vettori who did a great match. USA went under pressure and Italy recovered some points but it wasn’t enough.
The second set proved that Vettori was the only one who can take measures against the American block. The early set was as difficoult as the first one, but the attitude got better through the set. The problems were at the spiking section, and Giannelli wasn’t so much precise too.
The third set was a tight, Italy started better supported by Giannelli, who did the best things from the 9 metres line and succeeded to bring ahead in the score his team for a while. In the end USA legitimated the leading of the whole match with the last points. Sander was the leader of this set for USA.