Men's U21 World Championship 2021

Egypt win tight five-setter to finish 13th

Bahrain take 14th place at U21 World Championship

Published 09:48, 03 Oct 2021

Egypt and Bahrain engaged in a five-set battle for the 13th place at the FIVB Volleyball U21 Men’s World Championship. On Sunday morning, at the Levski Sofia hall in Bulgaria, the Egyptians emerged victorious leaving the squad from the Persian Gulf in 14th. The team of Morocco took the 15th place, while Cameroon who withdrew before the start of the competition remained 16th.

Egypt came back from a set down twice in the match to eventually defeat Bahrain by 3-2 (26-28, 26-24, 22-25, 25-16, 15-9) and claim the 13th place of the championship. The first two sets offered a hard-fought battle that went to overtime. Sayed Amin Ebrahim scored nine points in the first set, including the winner for Bahrain. Omar Deigham led the Egyptian blocking to help level the match in the second. Bahrain stepped up their offence in the third to take the lead again, but the next two sets were quite one-sided to bring Egypt to victory on a kill block by Ahmed Abdelazim for the match winner.

The Egyptian blocking made the big difference for the outcome of the match. It produced 13 stuffs, against only four from Bahrain. Sayed Amin Ebrahim topped the scorers on 24 points, one clear of Egypt’s most prolific player, outside and captain Abdelrahman Elhossiny.

“Throughout the tournament, we didn't do the job planned for us. We hoped to get in the top eight. The good thing is that we finished the tournament with a win although we wanted it to be a 3-0 one,” Elhossiny told Volleyball World.