Serbia and Russia extend winning streak at home tournaments

With Serbia and Russia having added two more wins to their count at the respective home tournaments being currently held in Zrenjanin and Moscow, Belgium and Croatia opened their campaign in Pool B on a high note with a couple of classy performances to edge the Czech Republic and Romania respectively. Some more days of intense actions are left before the five tickets available to represent Europe at the 2011 FIVB Junior World Championship in Peru are distributed to the winners of the four Pools and the best among all second ranked across all groups that will join 2010 European champion, Italy.

Click
here for more information, including detailed statistics

Click
here for a picture gallery

Pool A in Zrenjanin (SRB)


Poland vs. Portugal 3:0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-16)


As they debuted in Zrenjanin this afternoon, the girls from Poland easily overpowered Portugal 3:0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-16) in 70 minutes of play. It was an equal and balanced match only until the first technical time-out of the opening set. After that, Poland gained a 7-point advantage (16:9) and maintained the distance all the way through until the end. The second set was the most interesting one as the Portuguese girls raised the level of their game while the Polish team slowed down a little bit and let their rivals keep the pace. It was a neck-to-neck race until the score stood at 20:19 for Poland. After that Portugal couldn’t keep up and Poland went up 2:0 in sets after the partial result of 5:0. The third set was pretty much the same as the first one. Poland went up 8:5 at the first technical time-out, and widened the margin (16:10) at the second mandatory stop. After that, it was a matter of routine for the Polish team to wrap it up for an impeccable 3:0 victory. “The first match is always difficult, so I am happy with this maximum victory” said Poland head coach Grzegorz Kosatka. “We played better than we did yesterday. We are inexperienced in international competitions and we try to use these matches to learn and further improve” added Portugal mentor Gilda Harris Sarria. The most efficient player for Poland was Zuzana Czyznielewska with 15 points, followed by Ewelina Mikolajewska with 13. The best scorers for Portugal were Marta Hurst and Joana Polido with 6 points apiece.


Greece vs. Serbia 0:3 (21-25, 12-25, 3-25)


Only 67 minutes were needed by the home girls of Serbia, the reigning European silver medalists, to clip their second win in Zrenjanin in a match officiated by two female referees, Sorina Niculescu of Romania and Rudina Omari (Albania). The beginning of the match was actually favorable for the guests as they started to play with great passion and enthusiasm and surprised the hosts of the tournament. Greece was leading all the time, but Serbia chased down the result and managed to come close at 20:21. After that the hosts scored 5 consecutive points for the 1:0 lead in sets. In the second set, right after the first technical time-out at 8:6 for Serbia, Greece’s receiver Panagiota Dioti got injured. This unfortunate accident heavily influenced the rest of the match. Serbia quickly managed to go up 2:0 in sets. The third set was disastrous for Greece as they managed to win only 3 points. “This is a great victory for us. We have proved once again that we belong to the best teams in the world. I am especially happy with the way we finished the match, letting our rivals score only 3 points in the set. But it is not over yet, we have to remain firmly on the ground and win the upcoming matches” said Ana Bjelica. “We started the match very well, and we were looking good. Unfortunately, the injury of our best player Panagiota Dioti was too much for us. We simply couldn’t recover” said Greece mentor Apostolos Oikonomou.

The most efficient player for the Serbian team was Ana Bjelica with 16 points followed by Maja Savic with 12. Aikaterini Altini totaled 6 points for Greece.

Pool B in Novalja (CRO)


With a stellar performance of Lise van Hecke and Laura Heyrman who scored 20 and 18 points respectively, Belgium – with a group comprising most of the girls who two years ago were crowned youth European champions – opened their campaign in Novalja by beating the Czech Republic, bronze medalist at last year’s CEV Junior European Championship, in four sets (25-23, 19-25, 25-20, 25-18).

Some 1,000 fans were to be seen in attendance as the home girls of Croatia stamped a classy 3:0 win (25-22, 28-26, 25-15) over Romania to open their quest for a ticket to join the 2011 FIVB Junior World Champs coming up this July in Peru. Samanta Fabris top scored for the home side with 16 points with two more girls finishing in double digits, Karla Klaric and Tea Juric with 10 apiece.

Pool C in Moscow (RUS)


The home girls of Russia claimed this afternoon at the “Luch” sports complex what was supposed to be the deciding match to determine the final standings of Pool C. Russia defeated Germany, i.e. the fourth-placed team at last year’s CEV Junior European Championship in Serbia, in straight sets (25-19, 25-20, 25-15) to pre-book a ticket for the 2011 FIVB Junior World Championship scheduled for this coming July in Peru. Russia opened the game with a strong performance of all attackers and pretty easily claimed the first set 25-19. The next two sets followed a similar plot with Germany hoping for Russia to commit some mistakes to get back into the game. However, this was not the case and Russia sailed comfortably to the final 3:0. Anastasia Bavykina top scored for the home side with 16 points while Julia Hero contributed 9 to the count of Germany.


The operations in Moscow were opened by the game starring Finland and Denmark with the “Suomis” stamping their second victory in as many matches. This time Finlad was able to clip a lead of 4-5 right in the opening of each set to speed up the rhythm and stamp impressive scores (25-12, 25-12, 25-19). Two players squeezed in with 10 points apiece, Mira Hämäläinen and Noora Kosonen, with Julie Guldager Jensen totaling the same for Denmark.

Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:

Δημοσίευση σχολίου

LIVESCORE.in