Serbia – Germany
Serbia showed great blocks in the first set with Sanja Bursac, Adela Helic and Jovana Stevanovic pacing their side; though Germany closed the gap to two points (17:15) with Margareta Kozuch and Jennifer Geerties on fire, still Serbia claimed the first set 21-19.
Germany made a way too many mistakes in the second set while Serbia’s block continued to work perfectly; Stevanovic scored quite many points and helped the 2011 European champions move up 2:0 in sets. However, Germany fought their way back with Kozuch and middle-blocker Christiane Fürst and that trend continued also in the fourth set where Maren Brinker joined forces with her captain to call for the tie-break. This was a real thriller with the score close up to 12 all before the blocks killed by Stevanovic and good serving by Helic paved the way for Serbia with Jelena Blagojevic scoring the final point.
“Next week we’ll play our home round and we will try to improve on what we have done here” Blagojevic said. “I am happy with the quality that this young group has displayed. Together with Olga Raonic I am here to help the young players with our experience and this victory against Germany makes me very happy” adds the wing-spiker who plays in Italy for Volley BERGAMO.
“Congratulations to Serbia. They had more power than us in attack. This is one of the points we have to work on” stressed Germany’s head coach Giovanni Guidetti.
