Turkey and Belarus will enter the court at the Topsportcentrum Rotterdam on Sunday to decide which team claims ninth place at this year's edition of the FIVB Volleyball Women's U20 World Championship.
Women u20 2021
Turkey to clash with Belarus for ninth place
Turkey outperform Egypt, Belarus surpass Argentina
Published 07:39, 17 Jul 2021
Egypt and Argentina will play for the 10th and 11th positions.
Egypt stormed out to a 5-0 lead. With the first set unfolding, however, the players coached by Sahin Catma found their rhythm in spiking (14 attacks in the first set), and even though it was too late to take the first set, they entered motivated in the second to come back into contention.
Turkey speeded up on the block and at the serve, taking the next two sets. Both sides then delivered exciting rallies, showing good defence. Egypt worked their way back in the set to get only a point behind at 20-19, but Karmen Aksoy was impeccable on the block moments later.
Statistically, Turkey outscored Egypt on all counts except at the block. The Turkish players recorded 57 spikes and aced 13 times, while Egypt had 12 blocks to their names. Ege Melisa Bukmen topped the charts with 22 points, including six aces.
“We had problems with our serve in the first set, but then we improved, and it paid off. We are happy and look forward to our next match, we want the ninth place!” Bukmen, opposite hitter of Turkey said.
Belarus were in total control throughout the match. They took the leadership from the very beginning of the encounter. Kseniya Liabiodkina and Darya Sauchuk showed nice play to help Belarus open in their favour.
Argentina kept on struggling in the remaining two sets, and despite Bianca Cugno's attempts to turn things around (11 points in the match), couldn't deliver any surprises.
Belarus outperformed their opponents in all the volleyball components - 34 successful attacks (31 by Argentina); 12 blocks (six by Argentina) and nine serves aced (the Panthers could record only one). Darya Vakulka was the top scorer of the match recording 15 points.
"We had one goal today and we achieved it! We have been working hard, and I am very happy with the win. We are now looking forward to the match with Turkey," Darya Vakulka, opposite hitter of Belarus, commented.
