Russia defeats Cuba 3-1 in Pool A of World League – Volleyball news
A Pool A match of the FIVB World League took place on Friday, June 29, 2012 between Russia and Cuba in Novi Sad, Serbia. The venue of the competition was the SPC Vojvodina sports hall which had an audience of 300 spectators. By the time that the match ended,
Russia had defeated Cuba by 3-1.
After the one hour and 54 minutes long match, the score board showed the following final set scores in favour of the Russians: 26-28, 26-24, 25-17 and 25-23.
The Russian coach Vladimir Alekno expressed his satisfaction with the outcome of the match by giving the following statements, “Of course, I am satisfied with the result, although the match had no importance for the final standings. Very often in these kind
of circumstances the teams are not willing to give their best, but I think that today my team was very focused until the very end...”
On the other side, the Cuban coach Orlando Blackwood shared his views by making the following comments, “We already qualified, so there was no pressure on us to win this match...On the other hand, I am not happy with my middle blockers today. But overall,
I am satisfied with the performance of my team.”
The top scorer of the match was Maxim Mikhaylov of Russia who kept the score board ticking by putting up 23 points. Mikhaylov was helped by his team mate Sergey Tetyukhin and Taras Khtey both of whom contributed 13 points each. On the Cuban side, the most
active player was Yordan Bisset Astengo as he scored 20 points for his team.
The first set of the match started off on level ground with neither team going too far ahead. The set saw a tie at 19-19 but Cuba then got the lead because of a Russian error. Russia made amends and tied the game but the Cubans pushed themselves forward
with a 28-26 win.
The second set of the match was competitive as well as both the teams were playing at their best. However, it was Russia that managed to level the match by bagging a win at 26-24.
Both the teams fought hard for the advantage in the third set and the match kept going back and forth for the initial part before Russia took a three point lead but Cuba did not let them hold on to it for long and secured the advantage for themselves. After
the first technical time out, Russia was in the lead once again and they did not look back till they had bagged the third set at 25-17.
Cuba stepped up its game in the fourth set and the score came close at 16-12 but with the Russians at the lead. Despite the fact that Cuba put up a good fight, Russia won themselves the fourth set at 25-23.
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