Fenerbahce – team
Fenerbahce opened with a 4:0 that forced the opponents to call an early time-out and Tomis could eventually draw level at 6 all. Ivan Miljkovic paced Fenerbahce (13:9) and with 17-year old setter Cem Koy standing the pressure of this demanding debut, the home side finished it off at 25-18 with the Serbian star scoring 9 points all alone in this section of the match.
Fenerbahce set the pace of the game also in set 2 (8:7) but Tomis bounced back (15:16) and after a very close fight, the guests could go for the provisional 1:1 (24-26).
The score remained very close up to 9 all in the third set before Fenerbace cruised past (12:9) and was able to maintain a small gap up to the final rush. Tomis fought back from 21:17 to 21:20 but an error of their setter Javier Gonzalez sealed the final 25-23 for Fenerbahce.
Leonel Marshall was replaced by Turgay Dogan in the fourth set as the Cuban spiker had suffered a foot injury, and the freshman added some points to the count of Fenerbahce (12:8) before Tomis clawed back once more to call for the tie-break (20-25).
Miljkovic paced his side once more in the deciding set (8:5) – in the end he collected 32 points – and even though Tomis asked for a time-out at 10:6, the local heroes remained focused and could celebrate their first win in the competition (15-8).
“It is too late to claim our first win but we have been sidelined by injuries up to now. Anyway this is the best motivation for the remainder of the season” said Fenerbahce head coach Daniele Bagnoli.
“We will be fighting until the last point of the last game in the Pool. This win is very important for us and we can only play better in the future” stressed Marshall.
“Tonight Fenerbahce played much better than they did last week in Romania. We nevertheless got 4 points out of our matches with Fenerbahce, so we can be more than happy” said Tomis mentor Radovan Gacic.
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