Pool winners from eight different countries at the women’s U21

Lucerne, Switzerland, May 13, 2016 – The women’s pool play of the FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships ended on Friday with eight pool winners from eight different countries. Among them are lucky losers Irina Zobnina and Urte Andriukaityte from Lithuania and Romanian qualifiers Adriana-Maria Matei and Beata Vaida. Matei and Vaida are writing history as the first women’s team from Romania to compete at a FIVB event. Coming from qualification they topped pool H with three straight wins over Mexico, Switzerland and Russia. Their final pool round win over Russia’s Daria Rudykh and Elizaveta Zayonchkovskaya (21-14, 21-16) was an accomplishment on it’s own, said Vaida. “It’s amazing. It’s like a dream. We have never won against Russia before. Our country has never won against Russia. It’s a revolution.” “We didn’t expect this coming here”, said Matei. “This was our first tournament, we didn’t know the teams. And it was hard, we had a lot of emotions every game.” Russia’s first team, Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina, did not make any mistakes grabbing the pool title in D with three straight wins. And they don’t lack any confidence either. “When we saw the draw for the pool we were sure we would win it”, Makroguzova said. The 19-year old blond blocker is the more experienced one in the Russian team. She won silver at the U19 in 2013, 9th place at the 2014 U19 and has also been …

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