Atanasijevic hammers five aces towards tight Skra win

Opposite Aleksandar Atanasijevic hammered five serving aces, two of which were in the tie-breaker of a tough CEV Cup match, to help his Polish team, PGE Skra Belchatow, persevere through Arcada Galati’s strong resistance and take a 3-2 (25-21, 26-24, 19-25, 21-25, 15-13) win.

Skra welcomed their Romanian opponents to Belchatow on Tuesday for the first leg of their quarterfinal series in the European continental club tournament in the role of heavy favourites. However, after gaining a 2-0 lead, the Polish squad let Arcada level it back and push it to five sets, which means Skra will need another win in the return match next Tuesday in Romania if they want to avoid a golden set or elimination.

In addition to his five serving points, the Serbian star spearheaded Skra’s attack, conducted by Polish national team setter Grzegorz Lomacz, and added another 17 spiking points towards a total match tally of 22.

Aleksandar Atanasijevic returned to the club from Belchatow ahead of the current season, after playing for their team between 2011 and 2013 and spending the next eight consecutive seasons with Italy’s Sir Safety Conad Perugia.

Atanasijevic’s teammate, former Dutch and Italian international Dick Kooy, led the match scorers on 23 points, including an ace, two stuff blocks and 20 spiking kills at a 71% success rate in attack. Skra’s other outside, Iran’s Milad Ebadipour, chipped in 12 points, including the match winner, while the two middle blockers of the Polish national team, Mateusz Bieniek and Karol Klos, added 13 (four stuffs) and 5 (three stuffs) points, respectively.

Romanian international Alexandru Rata (four aces, three stuffs) and Croatian international Filip Sestan (two aces, three stuffs) were Arcada’s top scorers with 22 points each.