World and Olympic champions Brazil bounced back in style to overrun Australia 3-0 in their Pool B match of the FIVB Volleyball World Championship for Women in Fukuoka on Tuesday.
Their 25-19, 25-19, 25-23 victory took their record to 3-1 from four matches, their only blemish being a shock 3-1 reversal to France on Sunday that sent the Brazilian camp into depression.
However, the South Americans showed no ill-effects from that devastating loss as they completed a dominant display.
The only similarities between the two teams was their green and gold national colours, with Australia mostly in green and Brazil golden in both quality and uniform.
Australia fell to 0-4 and are unable to qualify for the second round in Hiroshima, with only the top four teams eligible to advance from the pool.
They play Greece in their last match on Wednesday with both teams looking for their first win.
Brazil will be looking to sign off Pool B with victory against Germany and are determined to avoid another defeat that could end their hopes of defending the title they won four years ago.
The fact that Brazil had a relatively comfortably margin of victory against Australia in terms of points ratio will be crucial to the final equation when the calculations are eventually completed in Hiroshima.
The second round also features the top four teams from Pool C in Nagano and only the leading two sides qualify for the semi-finals, which means more than one defeat for any team could spell the end of the road - and points could be significant.
The pre-match scenario suggested a one-sided contest with Brazil determined to bounce back from their defeat to France and Australia still down following their drubbing by Cuba.
The Aussies, however, didn't want to read it that way, and came out firing in the first set. Brazil were held to just an 11-10 lead before going on a run that took them to 15-12.
Brazil were glad to go into the second time out with a three-point, 16-13, advantage.
Brazil's quality started to play a decisive role, especially in their ability to block Australia's main spikers Paul Carroll and Igor Yudin.
Gilberto "Giba" Godoy, Dante Amaral and Andre Nascimento were again the main points-scorers for Brazil, with Gustavo Endres also in good form.
Andre Heller's tap brought up set point for Brazil and Giba followed up with a service winner.
Australia seemed to be awed by the sheer presence of the world and Olympic champions on the opposite side of the net.
Captain Benjamin Hardy and his team were struggling to create opportunities, and when they did, their normally powerful spikes were replaced by weak slaps.
Brazil raced to an 8-2 lead, and than led 16-12 before Australia could fight back to 19-16. However, most of Australia's points were coming from Brazilian errors and the champs cruised to a two-set lead when Carroll sent his spike from the right sailing wide.
Australia led 4-2 at the start of the second set on Carroll's service winner as Brazil rotated their team, fielding players who had only little previous game time, such as Murilo Endres, Samuel Fuchs and Marcelo Elgarten.
Daniel Howard's spike put the Aussies 6-3 and setter Brett Alderman produced a cheeky tip that put Australia 8-6 ahead at the first TTO.
Murilo and Fuchs tried to justify the faith shown in them by coach Bernardo Rezende, helping Brazil come back to 13-13 but the hard-working Aussies, on Howard's service winner, went into the second time out 16-13 in front.
Brazil, however, tracked the Aussies closely and eventually took the lead at 22-21. Murilo gave Brazil three match points and Hardy's missed spike ended the match.
