14/09/2016 09:25
Czech ladies set the bar high ahead of home EuroVolley qualifier
2017 CEV Volleyball European Championship - Women
Brno, Czech Republic, September 13, 2016. The second round of qualifications to next year’s CEV Volleyball European Championships is about to start. Everything is ready also in Brno, the city that will be hosting the first tournament on schedule for the women’s Pool F – starring the national teams of Czech Republic, Belarus, Greece and Slovenia.
The second round robin tournament will follow one week later in Maribor, Slovenia and will determine who progresses straight to the Final Round and the runners-up that will contest the third and last stage of the qualification process.
Everything is set for the first match in Brno, which is scheduled for Friday afternoon at 3pm local time. A total of six matches will be played at Vodova sports hall that offers approximately 3,400 seats. For those who do not have the privilege to be there and witness the matches first hand, these will also be broadcast on Czech national television (CT). Slovenia and Belarus will open the programme of the tournament before hosts Czech Republic play Greece later on Friday afternoon.
Czech Republic and Belarus seem to be the pre-favourites of the pool, but Slovenia and Greece are determined to put up a fight. Three of the teams competing in Brno – Czech Republic, Belarus and Slovenia – played at the Final Round of the 2015 EuroVolley in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The Czechs will feel a bit of pressure and the other teams may take advantage of this. Czech star Aneta Havlickova said there are no outsiders in the pool, however she expects the matchup with Belarus on Sunday night to be a decisive one before the second round robin tournament follows next week in Slovenia.
Czech Republic head coach Alexander Waibl: “We played a few difficult matches in preparation to this round of qualifications, we did well in some of these games, for example when playing Croatia. We also played three difficult matches against Poland, where we won once, lost once and the remaining match was a draw. We tried more combinations and gave every player the chance to show her skills, which helped us develop some good tactics. Overall I am very happy with our preparations and we hope to achieve some good results here in Brno.”
Click here for further information, including a detailed match programme.
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