Serbia beat Kazakhstan 3-1 on Saturday in a pool B preliminary match between two Olympic women's volleyball debutants at the Beijing Games.

In their first appearance at the Olympic Games, the Serbian women repeated their victory over the Asian team at the Olympic qualification tournament in Tokyo in May with a 25-21, 25-17, 23-25 and 25-21 win at the BIT gymnasium.

"It's a very important victory for us, because it's our first match at the Olympics," said Serbia head coach Zoran Terzic.

"We knew it would be a difficult match, not because of the level of Kazakhstan, but because it's always difficult to play the first match in such important tournaments like the Olympics."

Serbia, who surprised the volleyball world by winning the bronze medal at the 2006 World Championships, started well toward its goal of winning a medal in Beijing.

"It's a great boost to our confidence, and we need one more win against Algeria and practically we are in the quarter-finals," said Zoran Terzic, who also led her team to a fifth finish at the 2007 World Cup in Japan.

Kazakhstan, which claimed the fourth and final place for the Beijing Games at the Olympic qualification tournament, fought bravely in the third set for a 19-16 lead before Serbia came back to tie it at 23-all.

Inna Matveyeva made it 24-23 with a kill and Natalya Zhukova blocked Maja Ognjenovic to pull one set back for Kazakhstan.

In the fourth set, Serbia jumped to an 8-2 lead and enlarged it to 24-13. Kazakhstan beat off eight match points to pull within 24-21, forcing Terzic to call a time out. After the game resumed, Jelena Nikolic beat Yelena Ezau in a fight over the net for the match winner.

Nikolic and Jovana Brakocevic each notched 20 points to lead Serbia while Yelena Pavlova contributed 16 points for Kazakhstan.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)