Nitra, Slovakia, August 29, 2016. To start the third day of action at the 2016 CEV U19 Volleyball European Championship – Women in Nitra, Turkey continued to dominate the pool with a stunning performance to rout France and get closer to claiming a ticket to the semi-finals, while the hosts from Slovakia snatched their second victory in a row. Belgium completed the programme by recording a 3-1 victory over Bulgaria to improve their win-loss record in the tournament to 2-1.
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France vs. Turkey 0-3 (9-25, 13-25, 18-25)
The first set turned into a disaster for France right from the beginning. Turkey delivered a great service to put it opponents under high pressure. It was a plan that worked really well and gave them the possibility for a 12-3 run till the middle of this opener. Some misunderstandings in the French defence made it easy for the still unbeaten players from Turkey to win the first set in an advantage of 16 (!) points with 25-9. The score became even higher in the second set, while the spectators saw exactly the same course. The Turkish girls dominated it in all aspects and took profit by the huge number of French mistakes which led them to 16-3 as the second technical time-out began. Turkey confirmed its authority and closed the job without issues at 25-13.
It seemed that the team circle of France, which was made before the start of the third set, helped them a little bit to find the fighting spirit back. Both teams had a tight battle untill the second technical time out, with the score of 16-14 in advantage for Turkey. However, again too many French faults cared for the third tournament defeat of France at 18-25. Especially the statistics display the overwhelming dominance of Turkey. It doesn’t matter if it was in attack (46% to 21%) or reception (40% to 18), it was without a doubt an absolutely deserved victory of the Turkish Team which collected the next points to remain on the top of Pool I in Nitra. Best scorer was Çağla Erdem, scoring 13 points for her team.
Philippe-Marie Salvan, France coach: “I didn’t see any Volleyball on our part today. I have no feeling because when you don’t play you can’t win. The girls knew exactly what to do and how to play the opponents but we are actually unable to play or have fun on the court. Having fun is important. When you arrive here you need to have pleasure but we don’t have pleasure. We don’t know why we played well in the first game and nothing worked after that. I discussed it with the girls but we don’t know what happened. We try to push the girls and give them a boost of confidence."
Onur Carikci, Turkey coach: “We are playing very well at the moment and had a real great serve today. My girls started it the same way like yesterday and followed our match plan. We know that France had problems in reception and wanted to use it to our advantage. The rest day will be good to refresh mentally and to prepare for a hard game versus Bulgaria.”
Burcu Tutku Yüzgenc, Turkey captain: “I am proud of my teammates; they played quite a good game. We took the win with a strong serve and attack which was the main difference today. It is our goal to win all games here to finish the preliminary round in first place.”
Croatia vs. Slovakia 0-3 (17-25, 11-25, 19-25)
Supported by their amazing and passionate fans, Slovakia found the rhythm in a quick way and achieved a 3-0 leadership due to a strong and risky service game; a block by outside-spiker Zuzana Sepelova moved the count to 4-0 and forced the Croatian coach Marija Anzulovic to take her first time-out. Again and again the dominating attackers Karin Sunderlikova and Karolina Fricova, who scored almost all points in the first set, overpowered the block from Croatia and found every single gap to increase the advantage from 14-6 to 20-13. The Croatian team didn’t find any answer to avoid a defeat and lost the opening set 17-25 as Karin Sunderlikova scored a wonderful point down the line.
It was almost the same start in the second set. Croatia had a lot of problems in reception and made too many easy mistakes to be an equal opponent. The score stood at 8-2 at the first technical time-out and was improved by Karin Sunderlikova with two consecutive aces to 13-5. Croatia´s coach Marija Anzulovic tried everything but two time-outs as well as some substitutions didn’t spark the desired effect and led them to the next set loss at 17-25. Slovakia´s attackers were too strong for the Croatian defence and the host team wasn’t to stop even when a strong serve troubled their receivers.
The last set of the match was the most exciting. It was Croatia that took the initiative at the start and created a 3-0 lead after the set began. It did not take that long before the top scorers Karolina Fricova (15 points) and Karin Sunderlikova (16 points) found their lucky hand to turn the score in advantage for the hosts to 8-5 and 16-12. Karolina Fricova decided the crunch time, as the scoreboard showed a narrow Slovakian lead at 21-19, moving the score to 24-19 with two service winners; a spike by Sunderlikova made the last point at 25-19 and triggered the next Volleyball party in Nitra.
Marija Anzulovic, Croatia coach: “One of the main reasons for our loss were the spectators of Slovakia. They supported their team very well but my girls unfortunately couldn’t stand the pressure. Of course, Slovakia did a great job and their attackers showed a strong performance today. Losing all three matches at the beginning was not our goal. I will try to do my best to improve our condition from a psychological standpoint during the rest day. We are not happy and want to win at least one game at the European Championship.”
Ema Strunjak, Croatia captain: “We are not happy. We are sad. We were prepared well for this tournament but it’s not just working for us. We found it hard because of the atmosphere but personally I like playing in this kind of ambiance. Maybe for some girls this is the first time so it was kind of scary, I don’t know. We are not relaxed enough on the court and we don’t want to do something wrong or are afraid of making mistakes. The pressure was all on us and we made a lot of mistakes.”
Eva Kosekova, coach of Slovakia: “Our tactic was to play aggressive with our serve and it worked well. I think we have shown a modern game and we are happy that we snatched the next three points in the tournament. After the second set, I told my players that Croatia have nothing to lose and that we have to stay concentrated.”
Lucia Sedlackova, player of Slovakia: “We had to win this match because we were the favourites against Croatia. We played very well in the first two sets but we always knew that Croatia could start a comeback and anything can happen. We are extremely happy and also tired after three matches in a row and look forward to enjoying the rest day tomorrow.”
Belgium vs. Bulgaria 3-1 (20-25, 25-16, 25-17, 25-14)
The last match of the day delivered a battle between Belgium and Bulgaria. Nevertheless, it started with a huge advantage for the “Yellow Tigers” which gained the momentum with a strong service game moving the score from 8-5 to 12-5. The Bulgarian coach Dimo Tonev took a time-out and it seemed that he made the right move. His players started a run, with captain Monika Krasteva on fire, scoring point after point to accomplish the comeback at 16-16. Belgium had huge problems in reception and didn’t recover from this shock; too many faults in attack and service cost them the first set with 20-25.
Belgium took advantage of great blocking action among its opponents and imposed a pace of play that the Bulgarian girls couldn’t follow. The attacks killed by Manon Stragier provided the “Tigers” with a total control from start to end of the second set (25-16) and the same trend continued with Silke Van Avermaet who finished the third chapter with a monster block at 25-17. Things didn’t change in the following set. The Bulgarian attackers were stopped by the Belgian players with a great working block-defence system, this resulting in a 16-13 Belgian lead at the second technical time-out. Bulgaria did not find a way to turn the score on their side; two aces in a row by Hanne Coppens secured the second #EuroVolleyU19W win for the Belgian girls at 25-14.
Fien Callens, Belgium coach: “I’m very glad because my players responded very well. We had a good stability and good reception today and for me that’s very important because the first two games were not easy for us. Today we showed some mental resilience, so the impressions are good. We are going to do some easy ball contacts in the rest day’s training tomorrow. I will talk with my medical staff to see who can do what but I think it’s important to keep the rhythm and see what happens.”
Anna Valkenborg, Belgium libero: “Yesterday we knew that the game was difficult but we had good focus on this match and we are glad that we won. We needed the contribution of every player. The changes made by the coach were good and we did it as a team. We don’t have the power and defence like some other teams but we are a good unit so that compensates for some deficits we have. I think we did what the coach asked today and we tried to do everything as good as we could. In training this morning we focussed on what Bulgaria would do and we anticipated it really well. Tomorrow is a resting day and then we can look forward to the last two pool matches. Last night we were given a free night by the coach so we decided to bond a little bit by playing a few games.”