Lausanne, Switzerland, June 22, 2018 - Serbia look for fourth third win in a row at the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Nations League when they come up against Japan, Saturday in Jiangmen. The two teams meet for the 24th time in history, with Japan having beaten the Balkan side only three time - last time as far back as 12 years ago at the 2006 FIVB World League.
Head-to-Head
• Japan and Serbia (including Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro) have met 23 times in world level major competitions. Serbia won 20 of those.
• World level major competitions are: the VNL, Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup, World League and Grand Champions Cup.
• Serbia have won the last nine world level major competition matches against Japan (2006-running). Their longest winning streak against this opponent is 11 matches (2001-2003).
• Japan have won only one of their last 21 world level major competition matches against Serbia, a straight-sets win at the 2006 World League.
• Twelve of their 23 world level major competition encounters ended in straight sets. 11 of those 12 were Serbia wins.
Japan
• Japan suffered a 3-1 loss against China on Friday.
• Japan have conceded at least two sets in each of their last 10 matches in the VNL since a 3-1 win against Iran in the opening week.
• Japan have claimed four of their six VNL wins in five sets. They could win five five-setters at a single major world level tournament for the first time. They also had four at the 1966 World Championship and 1993 World League.
• Yuji Nishida scored 17 points in the match against China. Masahiro Yanagida (10) was the only other player to reach double figures for China in that match.
Serbia
• Serbia have won their last two VNL matches in straight sets.
• They can win three matches in a row in straight sets in world level major competitions for the first time since the 2016 World League.
• Serbia can claim 10 wins at a single world level major tournament for the first time since the 2016 World League (also 10). They ended up winning that tournament.
• Serbia won 10 points and conceded zero points from stuff blocks against Canada.
• Srecko Lisinac (16), Uros Kovacevic (14) and Aleksandar Atanasijevic (12) all reached double figures in scoring versus Canada.