Serbia – France
The host team had some problems only in the early phases of the match but after the first technical time-out everything went just fine for the silver medalists of the 2012 European Championship. Serbia opted for a line-up including Mina Popovic, Bianka Busa, Natasa Cikiriz, Jelena Trnic, Tijana Boskovic, Sladjana Mirkovic and libero Aleksandra Stepanovic. Tijana Boskovic top scored in the end with 14 points and Serbia booked 9 block kills and 9 aces.
At the beginning of the match the teams played point for point until the first technical break. After that the captain of Serbia, Bianka Busa, took her side by the hand to move up 16:11, while Mirkovic served well to stretch the lead to 22:12. In the end Serbia silvered its fifth set ball to seal the final 25-17. Due to the numerous mistakes committed by the French team, and especially by Julie Oliveira-Souza, Serbia easily took the lead in second set (7:3, 15:7, and 18:8).
The young Serbian opposite Tijana Boskovic claimed a series of set balls with the second cashed for the final 25-16. In the last period of the match Serbia was strikingly better than the French team, cruising to the 25-12 that shaped up the final 3:0 win.
Gael Le Draoulec, head coach of France, said: “The spirit of the team was better than yesterday, but we made too many mistakes in attack and serving and it was difficult to fight against Serbia. We had a very good block but we couldn’t do anything better”.
France’s team captain Kim Nowak: “We played better than yesterday but Serbia was stronger. I’m sad because I like to win and we didn’t play very good”.
Natasa Cikiriz, wing-spiker of Serbia: “We are satisfied with this win in straight sets. In every match we are showing the right attitude and that is the key. Maybe our play is not as a good as we would like, but match by match we are getting better. I hope that we will continue like this and after our rest day we will beat Belgium in the most important game of this tournament”.
Serbian head coach Ratko Pavlicevic concluded: “For sure we wanted to play better but this was nevertheless a very good performance. We will try to perform our best in the next couple of games and especially in the clash with Belgium. We must give our maximum there”.
To read more news from this competition click on 2013 FIVB Volleyball Women’s U20 World Championship – European Qualification.
Find the full stats from this game on Statistics.
