13/11/2012 22:09
TOURS VB claims first win of the season by routing Crvena Zvezda
2013 CEV Volleyball Champions League - Men
Beograd, Serbia, November 13, 2012. TOURS VB of France scored on Tuesday its first win in the prelims of the 2013 CEV Volleyball Champions League by downing Crvena Zvezda BEOGRAD in three straight sets (25-21, 25-13, and 25-18) to claim third place in the current standings of Pool C. Crvena Zvezda played good in the opening set while the remainder of the match was totally dominated by TOURS VB.
TOURS VB started out strongly going up 4:1 but the hosts fought their way back to draw level at 15. After that, a neck-to-neck race unfolded before TOURS VB got a slim margin contributed by David Konecny and David Smith. After going up 18:15, Konecny scored three aces for the 23:18 and the set was sealed (25-21) by an attack of US American David Smith.
TOURS VB caught a splendid start also in the second set (5:1) while the players mentored by Dusko Nikolic were struggling in reception and attack. Nikolic tried to change the course of the game via some substitutions but the final outcome of this set was never to be questioned.
Set three was not much different with TOURS VB already setting the pace by the first technical time-out and gradually widening the gap (8:6, 11:6) as the guys around head coach Mauricio Paes were playing with great confidence (14:7, 21:14), thereby finishing the match with a clear 3:0 win via the superb performance of David Smith.
Dusan Petkovic and David Konecny top scored for Crvena Zvezda and TOURS VB respectively with 17 and 15 points. “I think that, regardless of the result, we shall have played better” said Petkovic. “We did not use our chances and did never show our real potential. TOURS VB is a very experienced team and we did not find any solution to control their serve. I hope we will play much better next week as we go to France for the return match”.
“We did expect more resistance from Crvena Zvezda especially after watching their previous matches against TRENTINO and Zaksa KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE but I think they were surprised by our aggressive start. They played good only in the first set. I have to say that we are all very happy with these three points” said a Serbian player included in the roster of TOURS VB, Stanislav Simin.
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