Russia and Thailand continue with success in Pool B – 2011 FIVB Grand Prix Prelims
Women’s National Volleyball Teams from Russia and Thailand remained successful on the second day of the preliminaries of the 2011 FIVB Grand Prix. Both teams overpowered their respective competitors in Day 2 matches in Pool B on Saturday, August 6.
Russia already had one victory in hand as they defeated Cuba in the opening match of the tournament. After beating the Cubans, Russia showed no mercy to the Peruvian ladies and scored a second win of the tournament on the second consecutive day. Likewise,
Thailand edged out Peru in the first match and kept the momentum to defeat Cuba on the second day. The NakhonPathom Gymnasium in NakhonPathom city hosted the wonderful matches of Pool B at the weekend.
Head Coach Luca Cristofani's team dropped a second straight match but he was happy with the fact that his young players must have learnt something new. Peru is playing with a totaly new group of players in the competition. According to their coach, they
are here to learn and gain more knowledge of the game. The Russian coach, Vladimir Kuzyutkin, also commented on the difference of level between the two teams. He acknowledged that Peruvian side is younger than the Russians. He clearly mentioned that Peru posed
no threat to Russia but Thailand would definitely be a tough competitor in the next match on Sunday.
Russia is equipped with a strong and experienced team line-up. They scored a comfortable win over Peru in three sets and closed the match by sending (25-12, 25-9, and 25-14) on the scoreboard. Sheila Castro, Gamova and Nataliya Goncharova were the top-scorers
on the Russian side. They stormed the Peruvian half with ground-breaking shots and contributed 19 points each.
Russians dominated the game from the very beginning of the match. They built a strong lead via powerful attacks and made it quite difficult for their opponents to stay on their feet. Team Peru failed to sustain the pressure and dropped the opening set after
scoring only 12 points. The second set proved to be even tougher for Peru. Russians kept on hitting long shots and didn’t miss a chance to score points. Goncharova added plenty of points and enabled her team to seize second set of the match at 25-9. Russian
dominance remained the same in third set. On the other hand, Peruvian side was devastated with heavy strike of volleys. As a result, Peru lost third consecutive set and ended up with second defeat in the tournament.
In the second match on second day of the campaign, hosts Thailand held off Cuba for an amazing 3-2 (23-25, 17-25, 28-26, 25-23, and 15-10) victory. It was a tough and never-testing experience for home team Thailand. Cuban ladies took over the control of
the game in first two sets of the match and kept the operations well under their hand. They put up a great effort in rest of the three sets but Thailand gained better status with slight margin of points. Cuba lost 3rd and 4th set with
2-point margin and game score was levelled. In the final set, Thailand played fast and covered the length of crucial set at 15-10.
Thai captain Wilavan Apinyapong was seemingly happy about their perfect run in the tournament. She shared her thoughts after the match and said: "I'm very happy to beat Cuba. They are such a great team with exceptional skills. We played according to the
head coach's strategic plan and tried to reduce the unforced mistakes in the first two sets, which we lost. Though losing two sets, we still played cool. We know we could beat them and we did it finally." On the other hand, Cuba captain, Yusidey Sille Fremeta,
stated: "It's a good match although we lost it. We did our best. Despite the loss, we will never give up easily. We'll try again."
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