Manama, Bahrain, July 18, 2019 – Russia’s key substitutions in the third set made the difference in their 3-1 (25-22, 18-25, 25-21, 25-13) win over Czech Republic on the opening day of the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship on Thursday.
Russia’s second setter Egor Kretchetov did an excellent job in calling the plays after coming in as a starter in the third set, replacing captain Konstantin Abaev. The 19-year-old Kretchetov helped his team setting up the plays and even scoring two blocks and an ace in the match.
Russia coach Andrey Nozdrin: “It is very important to win the first match in any tournament, especially in the World Championship. We were very nervous. We overcame our emotions today. The reception for our team was very good, especially in the last set. The main thing is that we won and the first match is out of the way.”
Russia captain Konstantin Abaev: “It was a really important game. We played against the Czech Republic in the final of the European championship and they are a very good team.
“It is our first game and the first game is always hard, and maybe some of our guys were a little bit nervous. After the first two sets we made some key substitutions and we started to play with better reception and better attack.”
Czech Republic coach Jan Svoboda: ““Russia are a very good team. We played very well in the first and second sets and for three sets it was close. Russia played better in the reception and in attack.
“We will now prepare for Tunisia. It is my job to make sure that we play the same tomorrow, to play the same level. If we play tomorrow like we did today, we can win.”
Czech Republic captain Ondrej Piskacek: “I think in the first and second sets we played good volleyball. We played well in service and in defence, but I think in the fourth set we kind of lost our concentration and we made a lot of mistakes on our reception. We must now try to play every ball and every match and we must play aggressive. We will see against Tunisia and against Iran what we can do.”
Quick links - Volleyball:
FIVB Volleyball Men's U21 World Championship Bahrain 2019
FIVB.com - Volleyball
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