RIO DE JANEIRO, August 9 (Xinhua) -- World Cup silver medal winners Italy sent World Cup title holders the United States to their second straight loss at the 2016 Rio Games men's volleyball as they beat the Americans 3-1 (28-26, 20-25, 25-23, 25-23) in a Pool A match Tuesday afternoon.
Osmany Juantorena scored 20 points to lead the Italians to their second win in a row with Ivan Zaytsev and Filippo Lanza adding 15 and 11 points respectively.
"I am very glad that we win a hard match. It is an important victory for us," said Juantorena. "I know we play very well because USA are a strong team and we fight for the first and last point. We are happy but it's not finished. We still have to concentrate because we want to finish first or second in the group. This is now only history and we focus on Mexico in our next match."
USA's Aaron Russell had a match-high 22 points to lead four American players in double digits. Matt Anderson scored 14, while Taylor Sander and Maxwell Holt had 12 apeice.
Twelve teams are playing round robin preliminaries in two pools with top four finishers from each pool to qualify for the quarterfinals.