truebluefan

The 1st Round of the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championship started out this afternoon at the Olympic Leisure Complex in Guba (Azerbaijan) featuring the likes of the home team along with Montenegro, Moldova and Albania.

Pre-favorite Montenegro opened the competition early in the afternoon against Moldova. In the first set of the match, the guys from the Balkans were leading all the way through (first at 8-3, then at 16-10) before closing it out at 25-15. In the second set Moldova started more confidently for a provisional 4-1, but then Montenegro sped up again the operations and sailed to 16-8 at the second technical time-out. That same trend continued also in the third set, which was quite rapidly closed at 25-16. Montenegro’s head coach Veselin Vukovic stated right after the match that “We successfully completed this match thanks to effective blocks and being very consistent all the match through”.

In the second match host Azerbaijan played Albania; the guests opened up very confidently (13-8), really benefiting of the absence of local star Jalilov, who got injured a couple of months ago. Albania finished it off quite quickly at 25-17 for the provisional 1-0. The second set was also quickly over in favor of the Albanians (25-13), whereas the third section of the game was quite interesting. Both teams struggled for each rally and Azerbaijan walked away for the first time in the scoreboard at the second technical time-out (16-13). There was then a certain pressure on the shoulders of the local guys, with Albania speeding up to 20-18 and Azerbaijan reversing the score for the provisional 23-20. A real battle was triggered which finished a few minutes later at 33-31 for Albania that seized the day in three straight sets.

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