VNL 2022

Dimitrova’s all-around performance propels Bulgaria to first win

The outside hitter shines in different areas as the Europeans down the Netherlands in a tie-breaker

Published 07:10, 03 Jun 2022

Dimitrova (1) celebrates with her teammates after a hard-fought victory against the Netherlands

A complete performance by outside hitter Gergana Dimitrova helped Bulgaria earn their first victory in the Volleyball Nations League 2022 on Thursday in Ankara, Türkiye, where they came out on top of an exciting match to defeat the Netherlands 3-2 (25-15, 12-25, 19-25, 25-15, 15-7).

· Watch all VNL 2022 matches on Volleyball TV.

The 26-year-old Dimitrova had already been the most productive Bulgarian player in their straight-set loss to Thailand on Tuesday, but she took her game to another level against the Dutch, strongly contributing to the Bulgarian triumph in different areas of the game.

The 1.84m-tall Dimitrova, who spent the last club season in Romania, led all scorers in the match with 20 points (17 kills, two blocks, one ace), one more than fellow outside hitter Miroslava Paskova.

GERGANA DIMITROVA - VNL PLAYER STATISTICS

Dimitrova was also one of the team’s defensive cornerstones, handling most of the team’s serve-receive duties with 39 passes registered during the match and tallying 19 digs, four more than libero Zhana Todorova.

“I think the biggest difference from our first match was our fighting spirit, that’s what the coaching staff asked from us,” she said after the match. “I also think we had more discipline from a tactical standpoint and did exactly what we had to do. The team spirit was a lot better tonight, we would never give up and we fought until the end.”

Dimitrova was pivotal to Bulgaria taking the point in arguably the most exciting rally of the match in the second set, making a pair of impressive digs before swinging hard down the line to score her team’s ninth point against 19 for the Netherlands.

Dimitrova’s offensive power was on display again in the fourth set, when she hit hard to score a key point and solidify the Bulgarian lead at 12-8. In the tie-breaker, she came up big for Bulgaria again by finding a little gap in the Dutch block to score 9-3 and push her team closer to victory.

Volleyball Nations League 2022: Full schedule

Dimitrova and her Bulgarian teammates will try to cause another upset on Friday, when they face reigning world champions Serbia at 13.00 local time (10.00 GMT).

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