China improved their team performance here on Tuesday, but still could not register a win at the men's volleyball World Cup being held in Japan.

The Chinese men dropped their third match in three days, losing to the United States 23-25, 25-20, 25-20 and 25-19.

"I am happy with the win," said US head coach Douglas Beal. " We know the Chinese team had strong performance at the Asian Championship, so we are happy with the result."

For the second day in a row, the Asian runners-up clinched the opening set before going down in the next three.

Coming off a 3-1 defeat to Japan on Monday, the Chinese improved their receiving and got their attack going in the first set. They kept an narrow lead most of the way for a 24-22 advantage and Tang Miao converted their second point with a smash.

China stayed within 21-19 in the second set, but the United States ran off four of the last five points to level one set back.

Then China ran into receiving trouble again and the Americans met no great difficulty taking the last two sets as Gabriel Gardner, Clayton Stanley found the spaces with their blitz attacks.

Stanley collected 18 kills, four blocks and three aces to lead the United States with 25 points. Gardner and Ryan Millar added 19 and 14 respectively.

"We played a lot better than yesterday," Stanley said at the press conference. "We had difficulty in stopping left side player, No. 7 (Tang Miao), but other than that we played pretty well."

Tang converted 16 of his 31 attacking attempts to lead the Chinese with 17 points.

Despite the third straight loss at the single round-robin tournament, Di said he was satisfied with his team's overall performance today.

"I am happy with their performance," Di said. "They played to their normal standard, especially in the first two sets, and they were not as nervous as in the first two matches."

"We are playing better and better and I hope we can continue to improve in the following matches."

Meanwhile, reigning world champions Brazil swept Venezuela 25- 19, 25-16 and 25-20 in Nagano for their third consecutive victory at the 12-team competition.

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