Bleiburg, Austria. On Tuesday evening, Austrian champions SK Zadruga AICH/DOB recorded a 3-2 victory in the first of two back-to-back matches with VK Dukla LIBEREC of the Czech Republic with Konrad Formela delivering a terrific performance for the home side, resulting in a personal tally of 22 points. A second matchup between these two teams will follow on Wednesday night and decide which one will eventually progress to the 8th Finals of the CEV Volleyball Cup.
The hosts claimed a 2-0 lead following 25-21 and 25-19 set wins but in a very closely contested game, the Czechs took the third set 26-24 and the fourth as well (25-19) to call for a decider. Even though they had lost to the Czech team in the CEV Cup two years ago, this time the Austrians did not lose composure and eventually pulled out a 15-13 tiebreak victory.
This means that VK Dukla LIBEREC have to win the re-match by any score if they are to remain in contention for a spot in the next round. Live streaming of this game will be available on the CEV’s YouTube channel here.
“We played really well in the first two sets and started well into the third too, but suddenly the mistakes came and nothing seemed to be working anymore. We only came back in the fifth set. Unfortunately, we regularly have problems to win sets even after leading from the start. Today we needed four match points to get the job done. It is of course a good thing that we won, but we were obviously not hoping for this result; it does not matter, since we are very motivated for tomorrow,” said Martin Micheu, Sports Manager of SK Zadruga AICH/DOB.
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CEV – European Volleyball
ÖVV – Volleyball Austria
SK Zadruga AICH/DOB
