European Youth Championships | 10 Jul 2016

Serbia gave Belarus bit of their medicine

European Youth Championships Junior Girls Teams Event

 

In an event that has been littered with surprises the trend of the lower ranked team beating the higher rated adversary continued. The departure of the last year’s bronze medalists, team of Belarus highlighted the Round of 16 of the Junior Girls Teams Event at the European Youth Championships. The team of Serbia followed exactly their path. Like Belarus last year, Serbia came from the second division to reach the quarters.

 

After Belarus beat top seeds team of Romania in the group stage, they were at the top of the seeding list in the knock out phase of the Event, but it did not intimidated spirited team of Serbia. Izabela LUPULESKU beat both Nadezdha BOGDANOVA and Daria TRIGOLOS, whilst third point went to Dragana VIGNJEVIC’S account. TRIGOLOS prevailed against Tijana JOKIC.

 

“They never beat us at the Team’s Event at the tournament, but still, we were very cautious,” said LUPULESKU.

 

They will play against Croatia, the winner of the duel against Turkey.

 

“All three girls, Klara CAKOL, Andrea PAVLOVIC and Ema MARN won one match, but the most valuable was the duel between CAKOL and KULAKCEKEN, Turkey’s top player. After we took that advantage it was much easier. We shook their confidence and made our job easier. Andrea also had two match points in the second game and Ema played perfect game,” said Nikica VUKELJA.

 

At the bottom half of the draw France succeeded against Hungary.

 

"We have very good team spirit. We enjoyed every game very much. I am happy about our performance against Hungary, we lost only one set. We hope for gold medal, but with Romania here, it will be very hard task,” said Marie MIGOT, who promised she would watch the Euro final tonight.

 

Romania will play against France in the next round. After struggling and defeat against Belarus in the Group stage, last year’s winners finally showed their real face.

 

“I missed few days trainings before the tournament due the injury and I struggled to find my rhythm at the beginning. Now everything looks better. I can feel the ball, the hall…” said Adina DIACONU.

 

Like Serbia, Slovenia took a long way from the lower Division to reach the new heights. They beat Sweden to reach quarters.

 

“We were not under pressure. The team Sweden had to prove they are favorites, we had nothing to lose. I know I can produce two wins and my teammates were also full of self-confidence,” said Tamara PAVNCIK.

 

Slovenia will play against Russia, the team that prevailed against Norway.

 

Azerbaijan created another upset by beating Germany. NING Jing, WANG Miao and DENG Simeng overcame Luisa SAGER, Julia KAIM, and Jennie WOLF. In Spanish team ZHANG Xuan Xu contributed her team’s victory over Belgium with two wins. The third came from Ana GARCIA.