Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 9, 2016 - Italy and Serbia already suffered losses on the first day of the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2016 Group 1 tournament in Brazil and will both try to avoid further damages in their face-to-face encounter on Friday.
Head-to-Head
• This will be the third meeting between Italy and Serbia at the World Grand Prix.
• Serbia won both previous matches, 3-0 in 2012 and 3-2 in 2013.
• These teams most recently met at a major tournament at the 2013 European Championship. Serbia beat Italy 3-0 (25-14, 28-26, 25-18).
Italy
• Italy started the World Grand Prix last year with a defeat before winning their next three matches.
• The last year in which they began the World Grand Prix with two defeats in their first two matches was 2000: 3-2 against Cuba and 3-0 versus Russia.
• Italy conceded 17 points from blocks in the 3-1 defeat against Brazil on Thursday.
• Paola Ogechi Egonu scored 15 points against Brazil.
Serbia
• Serbia started their 2016 World Grand Prix season with a 3-0 loss against Japan.
• Last season Serbia started their World Grand Prix campaign with consecutive losses, 3-2 against Thailand and 3-0 against Brazil.
• Jovana Brakocevic was Serbia's top scorer in their opening match with 18 points. Fifteen of those points came from spikes, out of 49 spike attempts.
• Serbia lost their last match of the 2015 season. They can now lose three consecutive World Grand Prix matches for the first time since a streak of four from 2014-2015.