German duo downs European rivals at 2012 Rome Grand Slam – Volleyball news
10th-seeded female duo of Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig from Germany opened the 2012 SWATCH FIVB Rome Grand Slam in an impressive way.
The duo played its first match of the Main Draw on Wednesday. Goller-Ludwig took on Liliana-Baquerizo from Spain and launched full authority on the European rivals. The German pair displayed wonderful action on the net and grabbed success in straight sets.
Let’s have a little rundown on the match:
Germans got off to good start in the match. Goller took full advantage of her height and threw solid jump serves. She started the offence and added quick points via successful attack attempts. On the other hand, good defensive techniques of her teammate
Ludwig further helped the team to achieve better position in the match. 23rd-seeded Spanish duo of Liliana and Baquerizo put up struggle but remained in the chase for better time. They dropped too many shots, which allowed German duo to secure opening frame
of the match with 21-15 on board.
The next set unfolded the same story. The Spaniards played under pressure, while the Germans continued with success. Ludwig’s solid blocking forced the Spaniards to stick to a low score. She threw her hands up in the air to block almost every shot of opponents.
Meanwhile, Goller continued with hard-hitting and did not stop until the final whistle of referee. On account of strong offence and solid defence, German pair claimed second set (21-16) and settled for 2-0 victory in their opening match of 2012 Smart Grand
Slam in Rome, Italy.
Goller shared her views after the end of play on day-1. She said, “It was good because we always have battles against those two. We played with them a lot in pre-season. They were in New Zealand with us, we played them last week and the week before so it
was good to win for a third time.”
She further added, “It is a tough pool, but to be honest there are no easy pools anymore. It is a like a little European Championship. We haven’t played the Finns that often, maybe once last year and once the year before, but the Dutch girls were with us
in New Zealand so we have trained with them before. I think there will be two more battle.”
Goller and Ludwig worked a winning plan for the match and perfectly executed it. Flawless performance in the opening showed their intent to grab more success in the coming matches. The duo is enjoying a great form and has high hopes after having a perfect
start to the campaign in Italy.
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