Serbs use home advantage to get into quarter-finals: CEV Volleyball Championship
Playing on their home turf, the Serbian Women downed the visiting team from Romania in straight sets on Wednesday, September 28, as the two teams fought for the quarter-final slot at the 2011 CEV European Women’s Volleyball Championship. Serbs profited the
home advantage and clinched success in the qualifying match. They sent 25-19, 25-15, 25-20 on board and clawed their way to the next stage of the tournament at the SC Pionir hall in Belgrade, Serbia. In the next run, Serbia will go up against Poland in a quarter-final
match on Thursday, September 29.
Serbia’s Jovana Brakocevic played an instrumental role in her team’s success. She not only proved her skills on offensive but also did a good job at digging. She dished out match-high 20 points and settled for the position of top-scorer in the match. Romanian
Carmen Turlea contributed 11 points and earned the status of second best-scorer. Overall, Serbia had 16 block kills, while Romania only had five.
The opening set began with an exceptional play from Romania as they fought gamely to push the hosts to their limits. They produced long jump-serves and tried to take over the game. However, the Serbian defence expert tackled the tricky high-paced pokes from
the opponent and helped her team stay on the course. A few of Romanian attack errors allowed Serbia to go up on the scoreboard and they never looked behind until 25-19 win.
The uproar of fans and previous set victory fully boosted Serbian performance in second set. They hit the ball hard and dominated the outsider team. Romania failed to put up with hard-hitting of hosts and suffered frequent set-backs. Meanwhile, Serbia extended
its lead to 2-0 by winning second set at with 10 points, 25-15.
Serbs found a great rhythm to put an end to the game in third set and ousted Romania with 25-20.
“After the hard match we played against Germany, it was not an easy task to play the next match and to win it, no matter which team we are playing against. We started on the wrong level, the pressure was high, but later everything went well for us. I’m sure
we will be the team we used to be before this championship started, we will reach that high level of performance.” said Serbian captain Jelena Nikolic.
Zoran Terzic, the Serbian head coach, had his say about the match and stated that his side suffered a set-back in the start but controlled the net action afterwards. He praised his players for good serves and solid attacks. However, the coach believes that
team could have done much better. Terzic is now all focused on the upcoming tough fixture with Poles.
Speaking of next match, he added: “We need a maximum support from our audience, so I’d like to invite them to come in large number tomorrow to support us against Poland.’’
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