Púchov, Slovakia, April 11, 2018. As the 2018 CEV U18 Volleyball European Championship - Men returned with the fourth day of pool play, the favourites of the matches Russia, Belgium and Italy claimed 3-0 victories against Ukraine, Slovakia and France respectively.
Live streaming of all matches is available here.
Ukraine vs. Russia 0-3 (18-25, 14-25, 13-25)
Russia started well and thanks to good service and block built a six-point lead early in the first set. Ukraine closed in at 15-16, but Russia came back strong and won 25-18. The score was levelled in the first part of the second set, but the Russian spiker Omar Kurbanov made the difference and his team scored six points in a row, when he was in the serving area. Russia claimed the second set and had no trouble continuing their dominance in the third and thus recorded another win - their third in four matches - in Pool II.
“Today we played very well and when we play well, we cannot lose. Tomorrow we have a very important match against Belgium, and we will prepare for an intense match,” Russian coach Mikhail Nikolaev promised.
Libero Maksym Rudenko of Ukraine admitted: “The Russian serve was perfect today, and we really had problems in reception. And when you have no reception, you cannot do anything. We just did not find the way how to deal with their serve.”
Belgium vs. Slovakia 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-21)
Belgium started first set well, and was leading 9-4, but, going into the second technical time-out it was 16-15 for Slovakia, then 17:15. Afterwards Belgium pushed their serve to get to 20-19 and went on to win the set. Start of the second set again was very close, Slovakia was leading 4-1, but in a couple of minutes the score had already turned into the favor of Belgium 14-11. A couple of successful episodes for the Slovaks pulled the result close, yet Belgium dominated the end of the set. They continued doing so in the third, being in the lead 15-9, Slovaks burnt their deficit to 2 points, but the Belgian attacks sealed the deal once again.
Mieke Moyaert, coach of Belgium, explained that the 3-0 win does not mean it Belgians claimed it at ease: "I am so glad we have 3 points from this match and we did not lose a set. It was not easy, because Slovakia never stopped playing. Whatever the score was, they were still playing, still trying. Thankfully, we found the solutions."
Coach Erik Gabor once again stressed the importance of being concentrated at the final episodes of the sets: "We played a solid game against the silver medalist from last year's U17 European Championship. But it is always the same - we are doing easy mistakes in crucial moments. We are out of the qualification to Zlin, it is a pitty, but we will try to finish the tournament with a good performance against the big favorite of the pool and championship - Italy."
Italy vs. France 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-15)
In the first set of the game, Italy won by showcasing their mighty serves and blocks and proving their winning streak is no coincidence. In the second set, France were trying to come back into the game, and were in the lead 16-15 at the second technical time-out but the end of the set belonged to Italy again. The third set was played very well by the Italian setter Paolo Porro and France were not able to find a way to disrupt the perfect Italian attack. By the score of 20-10, it seemed to be an easy finish for Italy, but then Mateo Lapierre had a great exhibition on the serve line, but by own mistakes France eventually lost the third set 15-25.
Vincenzo Fanizza, coach of the Italian boys, could not hide his joy about extending the winning streak to four games in a row: “We are very happy, because with this victory we secured our place in the semifinals and also our participation in the World Championship next year. We do not want to stop, because tomorrow we have a match against Slovakia and we want to finish first in our group.”
Outside hitter Mateo Lapierre, who showed some top level serves late in the game, said: “Actually, it was not a bad match from our point of view. We played well, but Italy is a strong team. Maybe we could make more blocks, but I think we are well prepared for tomorrow.”
Tomorrow the last pool matches will be played in Púchov. On Friday the best 4 teams of the pool will move to Zlín, Czech Republic, as the top 2 teams will have qualified for the semi-finals, while the other two teams will fight for places 5 - 8. The eventual champions will be crowned on Sunday, April 15.
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