Russia sweeps Egypt on opening day of FIVB Men´s Junior World Championship
With the FIVB Men´s Junior World Championship already kicked off in Brazil on the 1st of August, the Russians played against the Egyptians in the Maracanazinho Gymnasium, Rio de Janeiro on opening day. It was the second match of the Pool C in
which the Russians found themselves victorious as they handed out a defeat to the Egyptian squad in a clean sweep.
Not only did the Russians win the match in three back to back sets, they were able to completely dominate the Egyptians in each of the sets. It did not take the second seeded team in both the Youth and Junior world rankings long to win the match at the following
final set scores: 25-16, 25-16 and 25-13.
The Russian head coach, Sergey Shlyapnikov, made the following comments after his team had won the match: “We did not have many information about the Egyptian team, as they changed a lot for the last years, so we had to develop our strategy during the match.
We played well, but we can be better, even in blocking”.
On the other hand, the Egyptian coach, Mohamed Ellakany, made the following comments at the press conference after the match: “Russia is a very good team, with tall players. They played very well and very concentrated. We lost two important players prior
to the tournament and we really miss them”.
The Russians were able to get them the lead at 4-0 and took it to a 8-1 advantage. The tone of the match was set from the start as the Egyptians were seen struggling from the onset. After two teams came back from the first technical time out, the Russians
ploughed on towards an opening set win at 25-16.
Capitalising on the momentum built after winning the initial set of the game, the Russians started the second set strong and the Egyptians kept on trailing behind. As the game reached its middle stages, the advantage still lay with the Russians at 16-10.
After that point, the Russians kept on extending the gap until they had secured the second set of the game at 25-16.
The Egyptians seemed to be a bit energised at the start of the third set and took the lead at 6-4. But the Russians did not let their opponents get away with it and put on a spurt of speed to rush past the Egyptians at 10-8. Eventually, the gap between the
two teams increased and Russia manage to get a win at 25-13.
The player that was able to contribute the most to the Russian play was Leonid Shchadilov as he scored 15 points for his team. On the Egyptian side, the captain Moustafa Idris tallied the highest number in his team by registering 10 points.
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