The Polish duo Prudel/Szalankiewicz has beaten the French Thiercy/Gauthier-Rad. The Polish team turned out more stable in their play than the young French men.
The Polish duo Prudel/Szalankiewicz has beaten the French Thiercy/Gauthier-Rad. The Polish team turned out more stable in their play than the young French men.
The first set started with quite an advantage for Poland: 8-13. That led to frustration on the other side of the field, with a loud scream from Thiercy. Prudel and Szalankiewicz got their first set point at 20-11. They didn’t win the set immediately, but at 14-21 the set was over.
In the second set, the Polish men showed that they play smart, by sometimes even playing the ball over the net at once. France played true power volleyball, so the set score was even for a long time. With a few hard hits, the French managed to win the set.
Poland started strong in the third set. With some lucky shots they got ahead, for example with a serve via the net that barely got over. During the set, Thiercy and Gauthier-Rad made a little more mistakes than Prudel and Szalankiewicz. Poland took the third set with a final score of 15-8.
Prudel/Szalankiewicz play against Smedins/Samoilovs (LAT) tonight, for a spot in the quarter finals: “We have to play really well. We will try to put pressure on them and then we’ll see what happens.”