Setters are not easy to compare statistically, but when it comes to Maja Ognjenovic, few would disagree that she is women’s volleyball’s best playmaker of our time, while current and former teammates say they feel privileged and lucky to have played with the Serbian star.
Over the last decade, Ognjenovic has led her teams to a number of world and continental titles and Olympic medals, more than most athletes can even dream of, but the 36-year-old Serbian says she is not done yet and hopes for more in the years ahead.
“I’m happy to have had the opportunity to play in Serbian volleyball and in world volleyball during the last decade and I hope to have the opportunity to play a little more during the new decade. Because I have plans. I feel really good on the court and I have more to give to volleyball,” Ognjenovic told Volleyball World.
But her early success on the volleyball court came well before the last decade had even started. With the national team of Serbia and Montenegro, Ognjenovic claimed her first FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship medal in 2006 when they finished third in Japan. The following year, Serbia reached the final of the CEV European Championship and brought home the silver medals. By the end of the decade, they had also claimed a couple of gold medals in the newly established CEV European League.
“Ten years ago the game was a little slower than it is now, but the level has been increasing year by year,” the 1.83m-tall setter added.
The first major international title for Ognjenovic came in the first year of the last decade as Serbia topped the podium at EuroVolley 2011.
“I can’t say our title in 2011 was our biggest success, but at the time it was really huge. And it was big especially because we played at home. When we became European champions in 2017 and 2019, it was more like ‘been there, done that’,” she said.
But it certainly wasn’t anything like ‘been there, done that’ at Rio 2016 when Serbia won silver, their historic first Olympic medal. Or at the 2018 World Championship, when they triumphed on top of the podium. Ognjenovic’s other achievements with the national team include winning silver at the 2015 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Cup, bronze at the 2011 and 2013 editions of the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix, and again bronze at EuroVolley 2015.
“2016 was a big year for us, because we went to the Olympics with a big ambition, but nobody expected that we would reach the final, so that silver medal was really special,” said Ognjenovic. “And then two years later, we were on the top of the world. What more could an athlete ask for? I’m proud of being part of all the success of the Serbian national team.”
Ognjenovic’s club career also took her to the top of the world. She steered her Turkish club, Eczacibasi VitrA Istanbul, to the gold medal at the 2016 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship in Manila. Three years later, already playing for her current club, VakifBank Istanbul, she added a Club World Championship bronze at the 2019 event in Shaoxing.
Since the start of her club career at Postar Zrenjanin in 2002, Ognjenovic has played for many clubs in many countries. She topped national podiums as a champion of Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Poland and Russia and was a runner-up in Greece, Italy and Turkey. Her collection of trophies also includes the 2009 CEV Challenge Cup with Italy’s Vini Monteschiavo Jesi and the 2018 CEV Cup with Eczacibasi. The only major international club-level gold still missing from her showcase is that of the CEV Champions League.
Ognjenovic was, however, named the Best Setter of the Champions League in 2015, among numerous other individual honours earned, including as many as four EuroVolley Best Setter awards in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019.
While trying to claim her first Champions League trophy and Turkish championship gold with VakifBank, Maja Ognjenovic also keeps the upcoming Olympics in mind. She captained Serbia to a spot at the Tokyo 2020 Games during the 2019 intercontinental qualification tournament in Poland and hopes to go one better in the Japanese capital than in Rio.
“I'm very happy and proud that we managed to qualify, because the Olympic Games really means a lot to us,” she said. “We are going with the highest goals!”
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