Russia defeats Argentina in the third round of the FIVB World Championships
With Serbia having clinched their spot in the Federation Internationale de Volleyball’s (FIVB) Men’s World Championships semi-final Tuesday with a win over Russia, in Pool P the competition was to see
which team would qualify for the better consolation group. On Wednesday, Russia played the other Pool P team, Argentina, to see which of the two teams would advance to the 5-8 group, and which would move to the 9-12 group.
Dimitriy Muserskiy had nine points for Russia, three of them coming from aces, and Maxim Mikhaylov lead all Russian scorers with 13 points as Russia crushed Argentina 3-0 (25-22, 25-17, 25-15) to improve
to 1-1. Russia will now play Bulgaria in the next round, and Argentina, 0-2 in the third round, will play Spain. Serbia will meet Cuba in the semi-finals.
“Congratulations to Russia,” said Argentina coach, Javier Weber. “We played our worst match in this World Championship tonight. It can happen sometimes, but I am sad about it. We have a young team, now
we have to finish what we started at the beginning of this competition.”
It was close in the first set with Russia taking an 8-5 lead, only to see Argentina tie is up with two aces from Federico Pereyra, who ended the match with nine points. Facundo Conte led the Argentinean
team with 10 points. Russia managed to stay ahead of Argentina with deft blocks, and a serving fault by Luciano De Cecco gave Russia a 25-22 win in the first set.
“We played well tonight, our team was good in the serve, block and spike. Service was very important in the match,” said Valery Komorov of Russia. “We have to fight for fifth place.”
Argentina looked good in the early stages of the second set, taking an 8-4 lead, but with Mikhaylov and Muserkiy on their games, the Russians moved to a 21-16 lead, and eventually a 25-17 win.
Russia dominated the third set with Yury Berezhko blocking Argentina’s attempts to crawl back into the match. Russia ended the day with eight blocks to Argentina’s three. Russia had an 8-4 lead at the
first technical timeout, and was up 16-6 by the second, as they won the third and final set 25-15.
Russia was ranked number two in the world at the beginning of this tournament, and expected to earn a spot in the semi-finals.
“For us today it was not easy to play,” said Russian coach Daniele Bagnoli. “Yesterday it was a great disappointment, but our championship will continue, and we'll do our best. Yesterday we lost against
Serbia. Now we start another story and we will face strong teams in Modena.”
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