USA continued their unbeaten run at the ongoing 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men\u2019s World Championship after defeating Slovenia 3-1 3-1 (19-25, 25-22, 25-17, 25-20) in the Round of 16 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NORCECA champions had topped Pool D unbeaten with 9 points to book Slovenia in the Round of 16. And on Monday, they made another step towards a second World Championship title after recovering from a set down to beat Slovenia and qualify for the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gabriel Garcia was on fire as he spearheaded the United States into the quarterfinals where they will take on Belgium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the first set, Slovenia broke away with an 11-6 lead after six points in a row and managed to stay ahead and close the set by a six-point margin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In set two, USA fought back to open a wide lead. In the epilog, Slovenia denied three set points before outside hitter Jordan Ewert squeezed the ball between the block and the net to convert the fourth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riding the momentum and mostly outblocking the opponents, the Americans stayed well in control of the third set and it was Ewert again who delivered the set winner, this time with a pipe shot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
USA continued dominating in set four until opposite Gabriel Garcia fired a blistering ace to end the game at\u00a03-1 (19-25, 25-22, 25-17, 25-20).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
USA will now face off with Bulgaria in the quarterfinals on Thursday after the Balkan nation eased past the tournament\u2019s surprise package Portugal in straight sets (25-19, 25-23, 25-13) to also remain unbeaten. Bulgaria finished top of Pool E with 8 points drawn from a 3-0 win-loss ratio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bulgaria dominated the first set and, in the end, they could even afford wasting four set points and still close it off at a six-point margin, with middle blocker Iliya Petkov nailing the set winner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Portugal fought back and stayed competitive throughout set two, but lost it by the narrowest of margins after Bulgarian opposite Asparuh Asparuhov scored the 25th\u00a0point with a block. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was no stopping the southern European team in set three and they knocked their southwestern European opponents out with a\u00a03-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-13)\u00a0sweep, shaped up with a monster block by 21-year-old sub-in middle Preslav Petkov for the match winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
USA continued their unbeaten run at the ongoing 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men\u2019s World Championship after defeating Slovenia 3-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,7],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-3588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-newsbeat","tag-volleyball"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball.jpeg",1280,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball-300x169.jpeg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball-768x432.jpeg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball-1024x576.jpeg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball.jpeg",1280,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball.jpeg",1280,720,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball-825x575.jpeg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball-590x410.jpeg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a> Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/USA-volleyball.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3590,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3588\/revisions\/3590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}