15/01/2014 21:49
Fenerbahce cruises to straight victory after struggling for two sets with Finnish underdogs
2014 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup - Men
Istanbul, Turkey, January 15, 2014. Turkey’s heavyweight Fenerbahce Grundig ISTANBUL edged on Wednesday night Finland’s VaLePa SASTAMALA in straight sets (25-23, 32-30, and 25-17) in the first round of the Challenge Cup 1/8 finals. Some 1,000 fans cheered on the home heroes of Fenerbahce at the Burhan Felek Volleyball Hall waiting now for the return game coming up next week in Finland.
Ivan Miljkovic opened the game scoring the first point for Fenerbahce; even though the Serbian-born superstar made many mistakes from the service line, still Fenerbahce could kill good spikes to make 14:12 and force the mentor of VaLePa into a break shortly before the second technical time-out. Although Fenerbahce head coach Daniel Castellani asked his guys to pay much more attention to their serve, that flurry of mistakes continued. Fenerbahce did definitely not display their best performance, with libero Burak Hazirol also struggling in defense, but the hosts could eventually claim a close first set with the score of 25-23 on a spike by their Cuban-born star Leonel Marshall.
Castellani asked for a time-out as Fenerbahce trailed 3:6 in the early phases of the second set. VaLePa imposed their pace with Eduard Venski standing out in reception and preparing some good actions for spiker Olli Kunnari, a member of Finland’s national team. VaLePa continued to set the tempo of the game and at this stage Castellani had to field his Brazilian wing-spiker Luis Felipe Fonteles, whose contribution was extremely important up to the end of the set. Fonteles is still recovering from a knee injury but his addition helped Fenerbahce get back on track. Everyone felt like VaLePa was going to take the second set but Antti Esko could not capitalize on a very good opportunity to achieve this goal and after many mistakes from both teams Fenerbahce sealed the final 32-30 for the provisional 2:0 in sets.
The third set followed a totally different plot with Marshall leading the way for Fenerbahce; Ivan Miljkovic also found back some glimpses of his class and this way Fenerbahce could claim a 3:0 victory that sounds as a good omen ahead of the return game coming up next week in Finland.
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