Brazil emerge World champs once again

The 25-20 26-24 23-25 25-17 victory over Serbia handed the green and yellow girls from Brazil their third world crown.

The South American nation captured their first world title in 1997 in Chiang Mai after beating Russia in the final. They repeated the feat in 2005 in Macao after outclassing the same rivals in the final.

"The victory is really sweet. It came after four long years. We will celebrate this all night," said Rosane Maggioni, who has been representing her country for a long time.

The Brazilians acknowledged that Serbia, who lost to them in the group match, gave them a fright. "They were quite tough. There was very little difference between the teams in the second and third sets. We won because of our superior firing power and mental strength," Samara Rodrigues de Almelda said.

Brazilian head coach Luizomar de Moura was brimming with joy after the team's success in the championship. "I'm more than happy to see my players not lose a single match to any rivals en route to the final. Serbia are a strong team. After we beat them in the round-robin second round, my players confidence soared and they had absolutely no problem in playing them again in the final," he said.

 "As I said before Thailand is an ideal volleyball hunting ground for Brazil. When the country hosted its first world championship, we claimed our first world title. Now, Thailand staged it for the second time. We again won the title, our third this time. It's amazing to get to the top of the world. It's hard to make it, but we already have done quite well here in Thailand," he added.

Meanwhile, the European champions Belgium came from behind to beat Turkey 20-25 24-26 25-19 28-26 15-7 to finish third in the championship.

The Asian winners Japan gunned down Peru 3-1 (27-25 21-25 25-12 25-22) to come fifth with hosts Thailand toppling Italy in a hard-fought five set thriller 25-23 24-26 25-22 16-25 15-10.

For Thailand, it was a sweet revenge as the Italians beat them 3-1 in the round-robin match.

Elsewhere, Egypt beat Tunisia 3-2 (25-21 18-25 21-25 25-16 15-9) to finish 15th, while defending and three-time champions China came 13th following a 3-2 (25-23 21-25 26-24 19-25 15-13) win over Slovakia.

The 11th-12th play-off between the USA and Dominican Republic and the 9th-10th play-off between Germany and Mexico were due to finish late last night.