Mazuras and Knasas claim pool title while dreaming of Tokyo 2020

Larnaka, Cyprus, July 29, 2016 – Aurimas Mazuras and Audrius Knasas claimed pool A at the FIVB U19 World Championships on Friday with a 2-1 win (13-21, 21-14, 15-11) over Australia’s Adam Kitto and Bryce Poland. On Thursday the Lithuanians had already defeated Kazakhstan and Cyprus.In their final pool match Mazuras (18) and Knasas (17) had a bit of a slow start. “We had a rough beginning”, admitted Knasas. “It was pretty hot and we are not used to it. So we used the first set to adjust to this kind of weather and this kind of game. And in the second set we improved. After that the game was just in flow and we tried to do our best.”Both the second set and the tiebreak had long, spectacular rallies. A delight for the audience in the Finikoudes stadium in Larnaka, but exhausting for the players. In the end the Lithuanians made just a little bit less mistakes than the Australians.Knasas: “I think our physical preparation made the difference. We train a lot on endurance. We are used to playing these long rallies. We just go on and on and push ourselves to the limit. And that, I think, was the key in winning this game.”“We got pretty lucky with this group. The teams were good, but they weren’t very, very tough, like in some of the other groups. And we didn’t waist this …

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