Vienna, Austria, September 11, 2011. The pre-favorite of Pool A, Serbia, claimed on Sunday afternoon a second win after edging Slovenia 3:1. With this result the guys around superstar Ivan Miljkovic have already claimed a pass for the next round and are very much likely to advance directly to the 1/4 finals should they win also their last game of the prelims against Austria.

Serbia dominated the scene in the opening set where Slovenia could score only 9 points. Milos Nikic had already scored 8 for his side at the end of that set but the story changed in set 2 where Alen Sket stepped up to set the pace for Slovenia’s attack; although he pocketed 11 points all alone, still this was not enough to take home that section of the game which ended at 25-23 for the bronze medalists from last year’s Worlds in Italy.

After initially trailing down, Slovenia stormed back in set 3 to take the lead at 16:15 and with Serbia having troubles to finalize their side-out, the guys in green jerseys could go for the 2:1. The game remained tight also in the fourth set, Slovenia actually dictated the tempo for most of the time but Serbia displayed some excellent play in the final rush to pocket its second win in this tournament.

Alen Sket topped the charts of the best scorers with 22 points, while Miljkovic totaled 18 for Serbia.

“Serbia is a team of great quality that has the potential to win it all. I’m still satisfied with my team because every player gave his best out there. With one or two points going our way maybe we could have won another set, but it wasn’t meant to be” said Slovenian head coach Veselin Vukovic.

“We played with a lot of patience at the end of the second and fourth set and that made the difference. Slovenia played very well especially with their service. Tomorrow is a new day. We will have to show a lot of discipline and patience against Austria as well to make it to the quarter finals”, explained Serbian head coach Igor Kolakovic.