Egypt
Egypt took the opening set based on some strong serving from opposite Ahmed Shafik and wing spiker Omar Hassan which forced Dominican Republic into errors. Alongside that, powerful attacks from middle blocker Mohamed Khater and Ahmed Elkotb saw them take the set 21-13.
Strong serving again allowed Egypt to get ahead at the start of the second set, this time Elkotb’s rockets causing most of the problems as Egypt built a 12-8 lead by the technical timeout. Dominican Republic reduced their errors and increased their attacking points, opposite Julio Almonte supplying resistance with five match points by the end of the set, but it wasn’t enough to stop Egypt taking it 21-16 on a spike from Hisham Ewais.
Egypt followed Dominican Republic’s pattern in the third set, reducing their errors and increasing their attacking points, while continuing to score well off blocks and serves. The combination of points from all over the court was too much for Dominican Republic and Egypt took the set 21-14 and the match 3-0.
Shafik (14) and Elkotb (12) were Egypt’s top scorers, while captain Luis Adames Figueroa was Dominican Republic’s joint top scorer in the match with nine, but opposite Henry Tapia Santana’s nine made him his team’s top scorer for the tournament with 49.
The bottom two sides in each pool are eliminated after the first phase, so the Men’s U23 World Championship campaigns of both Egypt and Dominican Republic are now over and they head home.
