Poland finish World Champs qualifier with clean record and five straight wins

Zagreb, Croatia, July 31, 2016 – There was not much at stake on the final day of the European qualifier for next year’s FIVB Men’s U23 World Championship in Zagreb since Poland and Italy had claimed already on Saturday the two tickets at stake to travel to the major competition that will be taking place in Egypt in 2017. And yet Poland remained focussed enough to record their fifth straight win in as many matches after going through ups and downs in their final matchup with Turkey (3-2). Italy finished the tournament on a high note as well routing Bulgaria in three straight sets. Slovenia and Croatia capped the programme of the competition in Zagreb with an always fascinating ‘derby’ where their respective pride was at stake and Slovenia eventually came out victorious (3-0) to celebrate their third win in the tournament and settle for third place in the final standing. Poland vs. Turkey 3-2 (25-14, 21-25, 25-20, 22-25, 15-12) After securing their qualification to next year’s World Championship with their tie-break victory over Italy on Saturday, Poland played this match absolutely relaxed. Their coach Wojciech Serafin used only two players of his usual starting six but this did not have any impact, with Poland claiming an early lead and dominating the first set. Artur Szalpuk, one of Poland’s rising Volleyball stars, scored as many as seven points in this set. The course of the match changed in the second set with Turkey putting more pressure and playing a lot more solid to force more errors from the Polish side of the net. Turkey edged ahead after the first technical time-out and making almost no mistakes at all, they deservedly won the second set. Szalpuk returned to Poland’s starting six in the third set and his contribution changed again the way the game unfolded. Poland claimed a 16-11 lead at the second technical time-out and Turkey did not find any way to respond, perhaps because of a lack of motivation. Poland cashed a 25-21 win to lead 2-1 in the match. The White-and-Reds set the tempo of the match also in the fourth frame leading by one or two points most of the time but Turkey reversed this trend after the second technical time-out and eventually extended the match to the tie-break. Serafin made some changes to his starting six for the fifth set and after a shaky opening, Poland eventually sealed their fifth straight win in Zagreb – …

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