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Brazil faced in this Friday its first challenge in the 2015 edition of the FIVB World Grand Prix.
As were the friendlies in the preparation phase, Brazil and Japan clashed in a balanced match with ups and downs for both sides.
In the first set, with a good service and counting on Brazilian's bad work on reception, Japan spreed the leaderbord after the second technical time-out and gave no chance for the Brazilian to recovery, closing the set in 25x21.
Brazil came back better in the second set and with strong atacks by Gabi and the good blocks by Carol, the team led the score, allowing Japan to take the lead only in 18x19, but quickly recovering and winning the set in 25x21.
Excited with the victory in the previous set, the Brazilians came back for the third extremely focused. Fe Garay, Joycinha and Gabi dictated the tone in attack, while Carol and Juciely closed doors to the Japanese spikers, they could not find the strength to overcome the Brazilians girls and saw them close the set in 25x17.
Japan returned to the fourth set on the pursuit for the tie-break, reaching the second technical timeout leading the set by 16 x14. After the pause, Brazil woke up in time and with a good job on defense and powerfull attacks took the lead 23x17. The japanese team, that seemed to have already assimilated the defeat, saw the Brazilians lose concentration, allowing the nipponese girls to tie the game in 23x23, with six straight points. The south-americans get back on track with a powerfull attack from Carol and closed the game in 26x24 with a beautiful block by Gabi.
Brazil had five players scoring over 13 points, showing that the team, even with the lack of important players, managed to impose its greatest strength, the collective game. Brazilians Fe Garay and Gabi were the top scorers of the game with 16 points each, followed by Juciely (14) and Carol and Joycinha (13).
At the Japanese side, Nagaoka and Shimamura scored 15 and 14 points respectively.
In the other match of group A, Thailand beat Serbia 3x2 and took the second place of the group, one point behind the leader Brazil, with three points.
Brazil get back on court this saturday against Serbia, 2:00pm (local time).
