Boys U19 2021

The Boys who stole the show at the U19 World Championship

The new generation of volleyball stars in numbers

Published 12:52, 07 Sept 2021

Belgium's Ferre Reggers goes one-on-one with Egypt's Hamza 'Elsafy' Awad as he emerges overall top scorer of the 2021 FIVB Boys' U19 World Championship in Tehran.

There's a host of young players to watch out for in international volleyball over the next years, if the 2021 FIVB Boys' U19 World Championship that wrapped up last week in Tehran is anything to go by - and here's what the numbers show on who the best of these were:

Belgium ranked a mere 11th in the final rankings, but they did produce the tournament's best overall scorer in Ferre Reggers, who at 158 points from eight matches bettered the performances of 147 by Bulgaria's Aleksandar Nikolov and 129 by Colombia's Miguel Angel Martinez (the latter in seven matches).

Top scorers at the Boys' U19 World Championships since 1999

Year	Player	Ctry	Pts
1999	Ernando Gomez	VEN
2001	Mohammad Soleymani	IRI
2003	Mohammad Soleymani	IRI	162
2005	Nicolas Marechal	FRA	124
2007	Singh Mandeep	IND	156
2009	Luca Vettori	ITA	169
2011	Andres Villena	ESP	192
2013	Dusan Bonacic	CHI	176
2015	Dmitry Yakovlev	RUS	158
2017	Im Donghyeok	KOR	165
2019	Daiki Yamada	JPN	187
2021	Ferre Reggers	BEL	158

The 18-year-old Belgium opposite scored off 131 attacks (from 280 swings for 47%), 17 blocks and 10 aces. His run included one of the tournament's five 30+ scoring performances - 32 points in just four sets when Belgium beat Thailand. Reggers was the only player to make the list in four sets.

But the tournament high came from Cuba's Alejandro Gonzales who hauled in 38 points (37 attacks from 62 swings for 59% plus one block) - though the Caribbean side still lost to Egypt in five sets.

30+ scoring performances at the 2021 Boys' U19 World Championship

Pts	Player	Ctry	versus	Score
38	Alejandro Gonzalez	CUB	v EGY	2-3
33	Luca Porro	ITA	v BUL	2-3
32	Ferre Reggers	BEL	v THA	3-1
30	Miguel Angel Martinez	COL	v THA	2-3
30	Ajay Kumar	IND	v EGY	3-2

Nonetheless, it was Kamil Szymendera who emerged the tournament's most efficient attacker - a key performance in Poland's world title.

The tournament's most efficient attacker Kamil Szymendera of Poland beats the block of Iran's Amir Golzadeh in the semifinal of the 2021 FIVB Boys' U19 World Championship in Tehran.

With 64 kills from 109 swings for a 58.72% efficiency, the 18-year-old topped the attackers list of the tournament, ahead of Aleksandar Nikolov (121/217 for 55.76%) and Russia's Timofei Tikhonov (108/198 for 54.55%).

The most prolific attacker of the tournament was Reggers, who was set the ball 280 times (though only put away 131 for an efficiency of 46.79%.

The Czech Republic's Jakub Klajmon was best blocker of the 2021 FIVB Boys' U19 World Championship in Tehran.

The Czech Republic's Jakub Klajmon stuffed his opponents 32 times, averaging 1.07 blocks per set (the only player to go above the 1.00 mark).

And Kirill Vlasov kept the Russian tradition going, as he served 19 aces or .63 per set to top the list that fellow Russian Roman Murashko headed in the previous edition two years ago in Tunis.