The Americans had to dig deep before edging the Central Asian team 19-25, 25-19, 25-19, 26-28, 16-14 in a little over two hours.

The Americans didn't know what had hit them after the start. Kazakhstan's Yelena Pavlova roared out of the blocks and barely let up until the set was finished.

Her spikes were massive and even when the Americans did set up a decent block, there was still little they could do to counter the power of the Kazakhstan captain.

So shell-shocked were the Americans, they had to call a timeout after just four points -- all of which they had lost.

At the first technical timeout, the Americans were 8-2 down and it was only when the score reached 11-4 that they started to fight back.

But they were still six points down at the second technical timeout as Pavlova continued her awesome blitz and the outcome of the set was already obvious.

From then on, the match swung both ways. The U.S. had the early edge in the second set, but Kazakhstan pulled to within a point at 13-12.

But the 200-cm Tayyiba Haneef started to dominate the front line with some pulverising spikes as the Kazakhstan team went off the rails a bit.

Combined with some outstanding team defending, the U.S. piled on the pressure and stretched their lead to five points at 20-15 before closing out the set.

Heather Brown started to impose herself more on the game in Set 3 and the Americans went on a tear midway through the set, moving from 5-5 to 14-5 as sloppiness crept into the Kazak game. They handed the set to the opposition when they couldn't return a short serve from Robyn Ah Mow-Santos.

If the Americans expected their opponents to roll over in the fourth set, they were seriously mistaken.
The Kazaks matched their foes point for point to 7-7 before breaking out with some huge spikes from Pavlova, ably supported by Olga Grushko.

The Americans tried to hold on but were let down by some seriously poor serving at 18-16, 20-19, 21-20 and 22-22.

In the end, the Americans failed to deal with a serve from Olga Nassedkina and set up Natalya Rykova for an easy spike to clinch the set and even the score at 2-2.

Nine points into the final set, the match seemed to be all but over.
Kazakhstan were leading 8-1 after another barrage of spikes from Pavlova, but the Americans scored 10 of the next 13 points as errors crept back into the Kazak team's play.

But it wasn't over yet.
The scores went to 12-12 and 13-13 and 14-14 as the Kazaks saved three matchpoints.
At 14-14, Katherine Wilkins pushed the ball over the net into space for a point to set up another chance and Pavlova, of all people, ended the fascinating match with a wayward spike.