21/01/2016 23:09
Uralochka celebrate hard-fought tie-break win over ‘Serbian Sharks’
2016 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Women
Belgrade, Serbia, January 21, 2016. On Thursday night Uralochka-NTMK EKATERINBURG of Russia edged Serbia’s Vizura BEOGRAD 3-2 (25-16, 25-20, 21-25, 23-25, 15-10) to provide something to cheer about to a small group of Russian supporters in attendance at Sumice sports hall in the Serbian capital. Serbia’s champions could nevertheless be proud of their performance as well after they had lost in three sets the previous matchup with Uralochka contested in Ekaterinburg a few weeks ago.
Uralochka were the dominant force from start to end of the opening set. The Russian side played very good in attack, practically leaving no chance to score to the Serbian national champions. Home mentor Zeljko Tanaskovic tried to motivate his team and changed a few players but the hosts could not do much against the tall block of Uralochka (25-16).
After that, the match got a lot more entertaining for the spectators because Vizura fought back and played with a lot of courage. The two teams tried hard and played focussed to win their points. Vizura had the right energy to stay close to their opponent almost till the end of the period, but down the final stretch Uralochka made some really good moves and this way secured their win in the second set as well (25-20).
The atmosphere in Sumice changed when Vizura scored to claim a 16-14 lead at the second technical time-out of the third set. Sara Lozo’s precise serves and a more consistent performance in attack by the home team propelled some more mistakes by Uralochka and Vizura used this opportunity to win the set by 25-21.
As a result, Vizura started to play with more and more confidence. It led to a pretty easy period for the hosts. Vizura easily and speedily made it to 21-16, but the Russian girls put on an extra effort to close the gap. Uralochka tried very hard to win this set by coming from behind, but Maja Aleksic prevented this from happening and stretched the match to a tie-break (25-23).
Uralochka started with a terrific pace there claiming an 8-4 lead as the teams switched sides of the court. It motivated Vizura to try to come back and tie the score, but they succeed in doing this only up till 11-10, and after that Uralochka broke away to seal their 3-2 win at 15-10 with four consecutive points.
Irina Zaryazhko, best scorer for Uralochka with 24 points, said: “It was a bad match for us and we made a lot of mistakes. We almost played with no service and reception. My block was bad too, but it was still enough for us to win tonight.”
Liljana Rankovic, Vizura’s team captain, commented: “We cannot shed tears because of this loss. They played very good and we have some very young players in our team. In my opinion we played better for the first two sets than we had done throughout the whole match in Russia.”
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