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The United States couldn’t close out late in sets and suffered the consequences against the Russian Olympic Committee.
Russia overcame two game-points in the second game and a late four-point deficit in the fourth game as it defeated the United States 25-23, 27-25, 21-25, 25-23 in the Olympics men’s volleyball preliminary round on Monday in Tokyo.
Russia (2-0, 6 points Pool B) trailed 19-15 in the fourth game before going on a 8-3 run to take the lead and then completed the comeback win to remain undefeated in the preliminary round.
The United States (1-1, 3 points Pool B) after committing six attack errors in its Olympic opening sweep against France on Saturday had 29 attack errors versus Russia. In addition, outside attacker Taylor Sander had an attack error with the United States facing a match-point that could have forced the fourth game to overtime.
Opposite Matt Anderson and Sander both finished with a match-high 14 kills. The two former All-Americans, though, were each held to less than a 30 percent offensive efficiency.
Three Russian players had double-digit kills, including outside attacker Dmitry Volkov who had a team-high 12 kills. Opposite Maxim Mikhaylov had 10 kills, but the United States held one of the top players in the world to a negative attack percentage.
Russia had seven aces in the victory — two more aces than the United States — with setter Pavel Pankov delivering a match-high three aces.
Pavel also had his final ace in the fourth game to help prevent the match from advancing to a decisive fifth game.
Despite the fourth-game loss and the match-ending attack error, Snader had a team-high four kills in the final game.
Anderson had an ace as part of a 5-0 run midway through the third game to give the United States a lead it would not relinquish. In addition, Anderson had two kills and Sander led the United States with four kills to force a fourth game.
Speraw early in the third game subbed out outside attacker TJ DeFalco for outside attacker Garrett Muagututia and middle attacker David Smith for middle attacker Mitch Stahl. The two players coming off the bench combined for three kills in the game.
DeFalco in the first two games had six kills and five attack errors.
The United States led for the majority of the second game, but Russia tied the game at 23-23 and then survived a game-point on a service error to force overtime. The United States committed another service error on a game-point opportunity in overtime, and Russia then scored the next two points to take a two-game lead.
The United States in the opening game trailed 19-15 before going on a 5-1 run that featured an ace from setter Micah Christenson to tie the game at 20-20.
After the teams traded the next five points, Victor Poletaev coming off the bench delivered an ace to set-up a game-point for Russia. Anderson had a kill to fight off the first game-point, but Russia then converted on the next game-point to win the opener.
Russia in the opening game had four aces, including two aces from Volknov as part of a 4-1 run midway through the game.
This was the first meeting in the Olympics between the two teams since the United States rallied from a two-game deficit to beat Russia in five games in the 2016 bronze-medal match.
The United States will continue pool-play as it faces the African qualification champion Tunisia on Tuesday. The top-four teams in the six-team pool at the end of the round-robin pool-play will advance to the quarterfinals.