Gdańsk, Poland, August 26, 2017. LOTTO EUROVOLLEY 2017 hosts Poland recovered from their opening day defeat to Serbia by beating Finland 3-0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-19) in their second Pool A match.

In a first set dominated by Finland, Poland were keeping themselves in touch despite trailing 8-4 and 11-7. The near sell-out crowd went wild when Poland finally drew level at 18-18 and the roof nearly came off when they edged themselves ahead by a point after the next passage of play. Finland refused to give in and equalised at 22-all but, inspired by top-scorer Bartosz Kurek who hit five points, Poland secured the set 25-23 after a reception error from Niklas Seppänen.

Poland built on their success in the first set by establishing a five-point advantage at 12-7 in the second. Despite Finland closing the gap after a series of good serves from Sauli Sinkkonen, to bring them back into contention further on at 19-19, Poland surged ahead. The set was won 25-21 following a Finnish service error and the majority of the bouncing crowd knew victory was soon to be theirs overall.

Victory became a formality in the final set as Poland began to really turn on the style. They trailed at 5-4 but led 12-9 and had enough chances to secure the victory at 24-18. As the home crowd got to their feet to try and roar home a victory, they weren’t made to wait long. They failed with their first match point but after a serve from Tommi Siirilä went long, the celebrations could begin for the majority of the 9,500 inside the hall.

Paweł Zatorski, Poland libero: “We were very angry after what happened in Warsaw, so we just kept on motivating each other for the last two days. There is one more difficult game in Gdańsk ahead of us. We have to remain focused and still serve well what leads us to our quick and effective Volleyball.”

Tuomas Sammelvuo, Finland coach: “I have been thinking and I can’t be satisfied today. We had three similar sets and we ended up in the same way. We had some problems we don’t usually have. The good thing is that we can play against these teams, you don’t have to look who’s on the other side of the net. Focus on our own game. It has to give us faith. You always learn the best from the games that you lose. We have to be intelligent enough to take things from this.”

Serbia made it two wins from two in Pool A with a 3-2 (25-23, 16-25, 21-25, 25-20, 15-12) win against Estonia.

In what was a tense and unpredictable opening set, Serbia established a two-point lead at 6-4 in the early stages before being level at 7-7, 8-8 and 11-11 shortly afterwards. The two were neck-and-neck again at 19-19 as Estonia’s Robert Täht, Serbia’s Nemanja Petric and captain Dragan Stankovic scored well. However, despite failing with one set point, Serbia got the job done and won 25-23 thanks to Marko Podrascanin’s only point of the set.

In a remarkable turn of events, Serbia collapsed in the next period as they conceded their first set of EuroVolley. Estonia’s fans once again played their part as they surged ahead to lead 10-5. Serbia continued to score, but couldn’t bridge the gap and when Ardo Kreek managed to score to make it a 10-point gap at 20-10 the result became inevitable. Estonia won the set 25-16 and took a well-deserved 10-minute break.

Estonia completed the comeback in the third set as they won 25-21. Serbia could never keep pace with the team coached by Gheorghe Creţu and trailed throughout. This time the gap was shorter but Täht and Renee Teppan’s scoring prowess meant victory was very likely. Andrus Raadik secured the victory with a great spike that was too hot to handle.

Serbia knew they had to reply in the fourth set and Nikola Grbic’s men did just that as they forced the tiebreak. Leading for the most-part, the Serbs kept a healthy gap between them and Estonia. The two-time gold medallists wasted one set point but won the set 25-20 with a terrific dump shot at the net.

In the final set, Serbia maintained a comfortable lead against Estonia having initially been level at 4-4. They wasted two match points but eventually got the win with a 15-12 victory. The result meant it was a second consecutive defeat for Estonia, who have two points from their two five-set losses.

Nikola Grbic, Serbia coach: "That match was something I was expecting to happen. Perhaps I did not expect to be playing with this much difficulty, but I knew that it is not likely to play another match with that level of focus like we did against Poland in Warsaw. Estonia are not Poland and we were not underestimating our opponent, but perhaps subconsciously we were a little bit less aggressive than we were two days ago. I won’t say I am more satisfied with this victory, but it is close to the truth. Estonian fans were great. It is beautiful to play in front of your own crowd and Estonia played almost like as if they were at home. It wasn’t easy to have so many people cheering against you, but then again it’s not only that we played against pressure of Estonian fans, but we played against the pressure from their team, who played really great tonight. 

"We are already prepared to play every day and sometimes it is not bad to do so, because you immediately turn to the next match and don’t have time to think about it. But tonight we lost a lot of physical and mental energy, because we were so close to lose, so the day off will be used perfectly."

Srećko Lisinac, Serbia: "Estonia had nothing to lose in this game. With thousands of their fans in the stands they played their best Volleyball. We can’t see any opponent as a weaker team, especially when they have such great supporters, so this game reminded us that focus is what matters nearly as much as Volleyball."

Gheorghe Creţu, Estonia coach: "We still have to improve the quality of our technical and tactical skills. We are facing the best teams here and even if we played our best game against Finland, we fought like crazy here with Serbia. It can happen that some elements are not working, but we still have to believe that we can change these things as the match goes on. Today from the first moment my players were ready mentally and knew they can beat Serbia. I think they showed that no matter what the score is, they will fight back. Even when it was 14-9 in the tie break we were still believing that we are able to catch up with Serbia. It is incredible to have people with this attitude around me. They already made history here. Everyone will remember the tough Estonians here in Poland. We were talking about our fans in the locker room about how much help they are giving us, so if I can I would like to thank them very much."

Renee Teppan, Estonia: "Playing against Serbia is never easy. After the first set it looked like they thought that we are easy to play against. However, we proved that we can fight until the very end. Despite the defeat we are happy that we showed our best. We are a young team and we work hard with our great coaches, so hopefully it will be visible in the near future."