Sydney Olympics champions Cuba beat world champions Italy in straight sets here on Thursday at the 2003 women's volleyball World Cup, raising their hopes of grabbing one of the three tickets to the Athens Olympics on offer.

Zoila Barros had excellent services through the match to lift Cuba to the 25-22, 25-22 and 25-22 victory and a 6-3 win-loss record at the round-robin tournament, which runs through Saturday.

The Italians started strongly, racing to a 5-2 lead in the opening set. Cuba surged ahead from a 9-7 deficit with a 6-0 run on back of storming services by Barros for a 13-9 advantage.

Italy pulled within 22-20 later in the opener, but that was the closest they could go.

The two sides exchanged leads to tie at 18-18 in the second set, but the Italians faded again as Cuba ran off four of the last five points to make it two sets to nil.

In the final set, Cuba pulled away from a 17-17 draw behind Barros' consecutive services to go up 21-17 and never looked back.

With seven wins against two losses in hand and two more matches to play, the Italians were still hopeful of finishing top three at the 12-team tournament and clinching a berth to Athens.

Barros had four aces to finish with 14 points for Cuba, who were led by Yaima Oritz's 17 points.

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