Ljubljana, Slovenia. Denmark have achieved much success in the women’s tournament of the FIVB World Tour 1-Star event in Ljubljana this far with two of their teams reaching the semi-finals, with Austria achieving the very same feat in the men’s competition. Live streaming of Sunday’s matches will be available on the CEV YouTube channel as well as on EuroVolleyTV.
In the opening match on Saturday morning, home favourites Tjaša Kotnik and Monika Potokar edged Switzerland’s Kim Huber/Joelle Rohrer to stay in contention. Cyprus’s Zoi Konstantopoulou and Manolina Konstantinou and two Italian teams – Margherita Bianchin/Claudia Scampoli and Giulia Toti/Agata Zuccarelli – claimed the three remaining spots and joined the Slovenian national champions in the quarterfinals.
Latvia’s Anete Namike and Varvara Brailko eventually stopped the run of the last home team in the women’s tournament, winning by 21-17, 19-21, 15-9. The second semi-finalists became Denmark’s Clara Windeleff/Line Trans Hansen, who had to deliver their best performance to beat their Italian opponents. Cecilie Olsen/Sofia Bisgaard secured another win for Denmark: “This was definitely one of our best matches so far in this tournament. It was great and playing on the centre court was amazing. Ljubljana is a very nice city! We like the food and enjoy our time here so much. Now, we will watch our next opponents, prepare the game strategy and then hope for the best,” Bisgaard could not hide her excitement after the match.
Cecilia Olsen helped Denmark secure two spots in the women’s semis in Ljubljana
In the last women’s match of the day Sarah Cools/Lisa Van Den Vonder struggled, yet they succeeded to defeat Cyprus’s surprise package of the tournament Konstantopoulou and Konstantinou. “It was really nice to play on this court, especially because there were a lot of Belgian fans cheering for us. It definitely was not easy, the game was very close but we managed to do it and we are excited about tomorrow,” Cools and Van Den Vonder were obviously over the moon with their result.
The clash between Slovenia’s Crtomir Bošnjak/Danijel Pokeršnik and Austria’s Alexander Huber/Christoph Dressler was a great start to the men’s quarterfinals. The Austrians got into a comfortable lead but the home favourites closed the gap at 9-9. Huber continued with his superb performance to secure a 21-12, 21-18 win. Their compatriots Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst (pictured above) will be their opponents in the semi-final, after outplaying Italy’s Jakob Windisch/Samuele Cottafava to get there. “It was a good game. I think we played solid, as we did not make that many mistakes. The Italians are young and they have a bright future, but today we were better so we deserved this win. I really like Ljubljana, I have some relatives here, so I spent a lot of my youth here and it is nice to play here,” Horst shared his thoughts after the victory.
Vid Jakopin/Tadej Boženk celebrate their victory in a dramatic quarterfinal derby with Slovenian national champions Nejc Zemljak and Jan Pokeršnik
Slovenia’s home heroes Nejc Zemljak/Jan Pokeršnik and Vid Jakopin/Tadej Boženk delivered a true thriller for the crowd that gathered on the stands of the centre court. Jakopin and Boženk emerged victorious over the reigning national champions (28-26, 21-19). Boženk was happy with the triumph: “It is always challenging to play against Nejc and Jan. The fighting spirit is high, regardless of the fact that we are friends since our childhood. We just wanted not to lose without putting up a fight and do our best, and in the end we were able to progress to the next round.”
In the last match of the day, Italy managed to stop Austria’s dominance with Andrea Abbiati/Tiziano Andreatta defeating Maximilian Trummer/Felix Friedl 21-15, 21-19.
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Sources:
CEV – European Volleyball
OZS – Volleyball Federation of Slovenia
