Vienna, Austria, September 14, 2011. France looked like the sure winner of Wednesday’s first Playoff match in Vienna for more than two sets. However, with the back to the wall, Turkey came up and tried to recover from a 0:2 deficit before France kept their nerves and wrapped it up for the final 3:1.
Despite playing their first set in the “Wiener Stadthalle” – after having moved to Vienna from Innsbruck – France started amazingly again (8:2, 14:9). Like in the matches of the prelims, the guys mentored by Philippe Blain only brought themselves in troubles in the middle of the set when Turkey clipped a 5:0 mini-break. Turkey even had the chance to turn the set around (18:19) but France’s top scorer Earvin Ngapeth (21) seemed to have an objection against Turkey’s intention (25-19).
As the second set had started, Turkey eventually displayed the necessary aggressiveness for a Playoff match and suddenly played with great consistency (16:14). During the crucial phase of the set, France was able to accelerate the pace and force some mistakes from the other side of the net (20:16). After having missed two set balls (24:23), France finally sealed the deal for the 2:0.
When you lose two sets, it sounds crazy to speak from an upward trend. But in Turkey’s case it was the truth. The close second set seemed to having created confidence in the minds of the guys captained by Sinan Cem Tanik. After a very balanced start (14:14), they overtook the control of the operations and suddenly went up by 5 points (22:17). France knew that they were beaten and started saving energy for the next set (25-19).
Initially France’s strategy was going according to plan there (7:3) and seemed to pay off. However, Turkey was able to shorten the distance to France to two points (19:21), but eventually failed to close the gap.
Earvin Ngapeth top-scored for France (21), followed by Nicolas Maréchal (15). Serhat Coskun scored 22 points for Turkey.
Philippe Blain was very happy with the result. “Winning this game was the most important thing for us. Another big thing is that our substitutes really helped the team today and proved their skills”.
Although Turkey lost their game, head coach Veljko Basic was satisfied with the performance of his team. “All in all, we have to admit that France played with higher quality than us. We finished this tournament with a good game and this makes me confident for the future”.
Pierre Pujol, France’s team captain, highlighted the importance of a well-balanced group. “This competition spans over a long period and we have to play a lot of matches. Our substitutes really did a good job today”.
Turkish top-scoring player Serhat Coskun wasn’t as satisfied as his coach. “I think we made a lot of stupid mistakes today. The communication on court needs to be better to win matches like this”.