Iran defeated the World League champions and fourth seeds USA in a thrilling five set match at the FIVB Men's Volleyball World Championship in Krakow, Poland on Tuesday.

Iran started off furiously taking the first two sets by storm but the United States came back with a vengeance to force the encounter into a tie-breaking fifth set.

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The fifth set was a battle of nerves as Amir Ghafour made a block to put Iran in the lead 8-5 and made them exchange courts.

Max Holt kept the Americans alive, scoring two blocks to tie the set at 13-all but Iran advanced 16-15 and a spike from the US went flying out to end the match 25-23, 25-19, 19-25, 18-25 17-15.

Amir Ghafour led Iran with 21 points while the dynamic duo of Matthew Anderson and Taylor Sander scored 26 and 25 points respectively.

Iran, seeded 12^th in the league, is now in solo first place in Pool D of the tournament with five points after gaining another two points for winning a five-set match. They won their opener against the third seeded Italians.

Iran will now play 16^th seeded France on Thursday.

In Pool A, Serbia finally won their second match against Argentina 25-17, 20-25, 25-21, 25-21.

Aleksandar Atanasijevic top scored Serbia with 18 points followed by Nikola Kovacevic with 13 points while Jose Luis Gonzalez and Facundo Conte were the top scorers for Argentina with 14 and 11 points, respectively.

Serbia lost their opening matchup against host nation Poland but showed more character and played with more energy in their second match.

"We showed character and I am surprised that today we played with such energy because we did not show it in the first match with Poland," Serbian team captain Dragan Stankovic said. "Hopefully we will play like this until the end of this championship."

TagsAmir Ghafour, Matthew Anderson, Taylor Sander, Aleksandar Atanasijevic