Serbia – Spain
Serbia opened strongly (8:4) and with Jovana Vesovic behind the serving line, the home side gradually widened the lead (12:7, 16:11) before Spain attempted a comeback, storming back to -2 (17:15). The audience enjoyed some long rallies with both teams showcasing their great skills in defense, but Serbia profited of its experience to restore its leadership (20:15) and even though the final score (25-17) did not reflect the great efforts displayed by the Spaniards, still it also showed the absolute supremacy of the home heroines in the deciding phases of the set.
Coming out of this happy end, Serbia stormed out to a massive 8:2 in set 2 as Spain struggled to control the service of Bojana Zivkovic. With their last addition, Bosnian-born Brankica Mihajlovic, on fire, the Serbians went quickly up 16:9 and an ace by Zivkovic sealed the final 25-11 after the Spaniards fell completely apart in this section of the game.
Serbia opened with another 8:2 in set 3 but Spain attempted to claw back (9:5) helped by the good service of Milagros Collar. The guests cut the deficit to -3 (11:8) but Sanja Starovic took her side by the hand to regain control of the operations (13:8). Spain once again powered back (13:12) and head coach Zoran Terzic was even forced to ask for a time-out as his players were suffering, and quite evidently, the return of their opponents. Serbia found back its composure (19:15) and Terzic was even able to replace starting setter Zivkovic with young, rising star Danica Radenkovic, who was loudly cheered by her local fans as she joined the game, eventually anchoring her side up to the final 3:0.
“This crowd is just great and I hope that with these results we are somehow paying back the great atmosphere they have been creating here in Subotica. Every time we come here we are absolutely overwhelmed by the care and kindness of the local authorities and fans. We played better than we did yesterday with Hungary and I hope tomorrow will be another happy day for us” stated head coach Zoran Terzic in the end.
“We knew it was going to be a very difficult match for us but we lacked consistency even though we delivered a good performance in some sections of this game. We fought until the end and we did not surrender which is something I really like to see from my players. I would have liked to have a different score in the end but Serbia showed us tonight why they are the defending champions and we just need to keep working to improve step by step” said Spanish mentor Francisco Manuel Hervas. Sanja Starovic and Stefana Veljkovic top scored for Serbia with 12 and 11 points respectively while Spain was paced by Encarnacion Garcia Bonilla with 11.
