Nantes, France, June 25, 2017.  With Ukraine already qualified for the semi-finals their game against France did not have much riding on it, but they again turned on the style putting together a 3-1 victory meaning that they went the entire League Round undefeated.  While in the first game of the day in Nantes, Montenegro took a 3-0 win over Georgia to secure 3rd place in Pool B.

The confirmed semi-final line up is:

SVK vs FIN
UKR vs ESP

Georgia vs. Montenegro

For their last match of the competition Montenegro landed a 3-0 victory over Georgia. After a thrilling second set, they easily sealed the game in the third set (25-18, 25-20, 25-17).

Slightly weakened by their captain Ann Kalandadze’s injury the previous day, Georgia showed high motivation at the start of their last match of the competition against Montenegro. They were in the lead in the early stages of the first set (10-8) but soon Montenegro raised their level to dominate the game (16-13, 21-15) and finally won the first set 25-18.

The second set was mostly led by Montenegro but Georgia found the strength to come back and challenge the favourites of the match. There was a hot moment at 16-16 where both coaches yelled at their respective team and asked for more focus. After a thrilling arm wrestle period (18-18), Montenegro widened the gap and won the epic second set 25-20.

Early in the third set, Montenegro secured their lead 6-3, 18-10. Dragan Nesic’s women affirmed their superiority and paved their way to a landslide victory in the last set. Tamara Roganovic signed the last point with a brilliant ace right on the side line with the final score 25-17 and 3-0. Montenegro outside hitter Ksenija Ivanovic top scored with 15 points and was influential throughout.

Nikoleta Perovic of Montenegro said after the match: “We did not make a good job today but at the end we won and this was the most important. We did not manage to play our game neither the level we showed yesterday against France.”

Dragan Nesic, coach of Montenegro commented: “Our national team season ends today. It was important to finish with a victory, because our level is close to the French team but better than Georgia. Our main objective now is to qualify for the European Championship next year and we will work for it.”

Gvantsa Ulumbelashvili, outside hitter of Georgia said “It was a great match. We played at a good level but it was not enough to win. I think that if Ann (Kalandadze) had been with us today, we could have won at least one or two sets. Next step will be the European Championship, where we will meet Croatia, Italy and Belarus. We will have a stop in Poland to play friendly matches against the Polish team and prepare for this big competition.”

Ukraine vs. France

The dice were cast before the opposition started as Ukraine qualified on Saturday for the Final Phase by beating Georgia, but France wanted to improve their first round ratio by claiming a third home victory in the European League. However Ukraine proved to be too strong and beat Les Bleues 3-1 (25-13, 18-25, 25-14, 25-14).

To start his last match, French head coach Felix André chose to align their younger talent on the court, an opportunity for them to take maturity against a high-level opponent.  The first set was a quick one and the experience was tough for France to deal with. Les Bleues faced a striking Ukrainian team led by their captain Nadiia Kodola (20 points) and Anna Stepaniuk (12 points). The score was severe, 25-13 and it was over in 22 minutes.

France took their revenge in the second set. Winning impressive rallies to generate a lead (14-10, 19-14), they were efficient in service (four aces during the set) and defence. Trying to hit deeper, Ukraine multiplied direct faults and conceded the second set to their opponent. Marie-France Garreau Dje brilliantly scored two blocks just before Ukraine spiked out for the set to finish 25-18.

France might have given too much during the second set as they appeared worn out in the third. Middle blocker Iryna Trushkina was on fire, scoring five attack winners. The French block struggled to handle the Ukrainian game and France fell 14-25.

It was the same scenario for the fourth and what turned out to be last set of the weekend. Ukraine ran into the lead from start to finish. The 910 fans attending the match did not stop cheering but Les Bleues never managed to equalise. The Ukrainian captain, top scorer of the match, acted as a role model in the final set, and her team won through 25-14.

Nadiia Kodola, captain of Ukraine declared after the match: “It was important to win this game because this match was a preparation for the coming one against Spain, in the European League semis. We lost our concentration during the second set and started to make too many mistakes but we quickly corrected it in the third and fourth set, so that’s positive.”

Lucille Gicquel, opposite for France said: “The biggest difficulty was to find solutions in attack, we handled pretty well the other aspects of the game. As a young player it’s always good to have play-time but against such a good team it was a bit difficult. However we all need to gain maturity, we will have numerous opportunities to improve our game with all the matches planned this summer, starting 7th of July with the Group 3 of the FIVB World Grand Prix!”

Felix André, head coach of France commented: “It’s quite positive because we remain the only team who managed to win one set against Ukraine in this group and we did it without some of our game leaders. Younger players took responsibilities during this game and it was our main objective. Next step will be the FIVB World Grand Prix.”

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