Ukraine-Slovenia-and-Belgium
Ukraine downed Spain in three straight sets (25-22, 25-23, and 25-22) basically controlling the operations all the way through.
“This was the first match of the tournament so the girls were a little nervous” said head coach Andriy Romanovych. “But the same applies to our opponents from Spain and I think today we made the difference with our block and attacks” he continues.
The home heroines of Slovenia (pictured) also claimed a straight-set win by routing Sweden with a pretty clear score line (25-23, 25-23, 25-14).
“It was very important to open this tournament with such a good result and we know there is a lot more we can deliver throughout the competition. Even though the score was pretty close, especially in the first two sets, we were much motivated and the girls stayed always focused, so this is a well deserved win” stresses home mentor Bruno Najdic.
The last game on schedule for Wednesday turned into a real drama with Belgium eventually edging Croatia 3:2 (25-27, 25-20, 25-15, 24-26, 15-11).
“We believe that Croatia is probably the favorite side of this tournament and so we expected a very tough game” singles out Belgium’s head coach Julien Van de Vyver.
However, after missing international competition for about a year Croatia paid the price for this in the tie-break where Belgium displayed some good blocking to seize the day.
