Press materials / Volleyball World / In the photo: China – Poland match
Krzysztof Sędzicki October 8, 2023, 15:33
This is how you prove you are world class. Already certain of qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris, the Polish volleyball team defeated the Chinese in Xi’an in five sets at the end of the qualifying tournament.
The White and Reds secured the right to play in the Olympic tournament thanks to Saturday’s 3-1 victory over the Dutch national team. The Chinese, on the other hand, were only playing for a very broadly understood prestige, because they lost their chance to advance to Paris as one of the first in this group, and they were in penultimate place in the table. That’s why coach Nikola Grbic decided to let those volleyball players who played the least in Xi’an play.
– It is important to win the last match. We don’t want to lose it. I hope no one will get injured, because actually everyone is relaxed now and already thinking about Paris. But we have to play one more match and we will have to stay focused. I hope that we will play well – said our coach in an interview for Polsat Sport.
Polish volleyball players met these expectations from the very beginning. They played very evenly, effectively and at a high level. The Chinese did not do any harm with their serve, thanks to which the reception in the Polish team was at a really good level. And this translated into high attack effectiveness of the entire team. It amounted to over 50 percent.
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After the first few balls, the Poles gained 3-4 points, and then they kept an eye on this advantage. Grzegorz Łomacz often triggered the central players – Norbert Huber and Karol Kłos, who responded with effective short shots. The Polish team won the first match 25:20.
There was much more fierce fighting in the second game. The Chinese improved their reception, started to play more effectively in the offensive and they started to block. The one-point lead changed every now and then, but this time the end belonged to the hosts. First, Jakub Popiwczak “bought” the car, and then Wilfredo Leon, who came in to save the result, was blocked and the set went to the team from the Middle Kingdom 25:23.
The third game was a bit more clearly won by the Chinese team. Guanhua Zhang, the center introduced in the second set, entered the game perfectly and was tiring us with his serve. Similarly to the host Yuantai Yu. Meanwhile, on our side, Tomasz Fornal, who was doing very well, stopped finishing his attacks, and Bartłomiej Bołądź hit the block twice and things were no longer so calm. China won this part of the game 25:22 and took the lead in the match.
But the Poles were able to react to it in the fourth set. First of all, they strengthened their service. At the beginning, Grzegorz Łomacz showed off service aces, and in the final parts – Bartłomiej Bołądź, who first finished the attack to make it 17:9 for Poland, and then entered the serve and… did not leave it until the end of the set. During this time, he scored three points directly from the 9th metro line, including the last one – for 25:9.
In the tie-break, both teams went at full strength. They spared neither the serve nor the attack. The quarterbacks boldly started the midfielders and the second line. The fight went point by point for a long time. Until the advantage was played and the Poles ended the set and the entire match with a point block at 16:14.
This was the last match of the qualifying tournament in Xi’an. The Poles, who finished first in group C, will return to the country on Monday evening.
China – Poland 2:3 (20:25, 25:23, 25:22, 9:25, 14:16)
China: Yaochen Yu, Jingyin Zhang, Yongzhen Li, Chuan Jiang, Yuantai Yu, Shikun Peng, Zongshuai Qu (libero) oraz Dongchen Wang, Guanhua Zhang.
Poland: Grzegorz Łomacz, Tomasz Fornal, Norbert Huber, Bartłomiej Bołądź, Kamil Semeniuk, Karol Kłos, Jakub Popiwczak (libero) and Wilfredo Leon, Marcin Janusz, Łukasz Kaczmarek.
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2023-10-08 13:33:04
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