Krasnoyarsk, Russia, April 2, 2017.  After a 3-1 victory in the first leg earlier this week, Olympiacos PIRAEUS were in a great position going into todays decider.  It turned out that they only won one set, however it was the one that mattered as they skiped through to the finals thanks to the “Golden Set” eliminating Yenisei KRASNOYARSK from the CEV Challenge Cup (0-3; 21-25, 11-25, 23-25, Golden Set 15-13).

After the glorious victory in Athens, Olympiacos needed to win only two sets to go to the finals, but the Russian team had other ideas and made their oppositions mission almost impossible. 

Giving a rocket start with the serves by Irina Kuznetsova, Yenisey easily won the first set. The second one became a smash and a nightmare for the Greek team.  A 7-1 lead turned into a 20-4 demolition, but finally merciful the Siberians let Branko Kovacevic's girls earn four more points to make it 25-11.  The third set became a real pleasure for the spectators who saw a real thriller with Ekaterina Efimova playing a leading role for the home side (25-23). 

A devastated Olympiacos started the “Golden Set” with a lead of 8-3 thanks to great serving by Styliani Christodoulou. Yenisei followed this and brought the deficit back to only two points. It wasn’t enough however as 13-13 became 13-15 after a perfect block by Olympiacos. As the ball hit the floor a stunned home crowd of over 1,000 spectators could not believe the home team had come so close but had to leave empty handed. 

Branko Kovačević, head coach of Olympiacos PIRAEUS said: “Firstly, my congratulations to both teams, Yenisei played much better than the previous time. But today we did not play as well as in the previous match in Athens. This year we were very lucky that there is the rule of the "Golden Set" and we were also lucky in this set. I want to thank the teams and the fans from Russia, they supported their team very well!  The first three sets we played without any tactics, I think ... Usually we make a few mistakes, but today there were too many of them in the second and third sets.”

Alexander Koshkin, head coach of Yenisei KRASNOYARSK: “I can't complain of the girls today, they fought, they did their best. A "Golden Set" is always a lottery, we made more mistakes and lost as a result. Two stupid errors in the ending, if there were no such mistakes, everything could be different. There were too many emotions. When we won the initial game 3-0, I immediately switched, we started a new game, and in the beginning we failed, then caught up, but the eventual loss is only our own fault.”

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