European Championship-2023. Women

Group A. First round. August 18

Ghent (Flanders Sports Arena). Belgium

Serbia — Ukraine 3-0 (25:14, 25:19, 25:16)

It so happened that at the start of the European Championship, the Ukrainian women played against one of the main favorites of the competition, the Serbian team. Therefore, in order to grab a few points in this match, they had to work at not even one hundred percent, but much more. However, despite the crazy thirst for victory of our volleyball players, it was not enough.

The match began with a 5:0 victory for the opponents. This provoked Ivan Petkov to take a timeout. After the break, the Ukrainians managed to “change” the score, but the comeback was not yet happening. Soon, the opposite Tijana Boskovic brought her team the tenth point with a spectacular powerful serve - 10:3. It is worth noting that in the first set, the vice-champions of Europe served a lot of aces.

Then the match briefly leveled off, and the sides began to take turns scoring points. However, such a development of events played into the hands of the wards of Giovanni Guidetti, because the difference of seven points continued to hold - 16:9, 20:13. Unfortunately, the ending also remained in favor of Serbs. The latter made decisions very quickly, which is why the blue-yellow team did not always have time to "cover" their shots - 25:14.

In the next set, our girls tried to take regular risks in the final stage of the attacks, understanding the full power of the Serbian block. However, it turned out with variable success - 11:6. Oleksandra Milenko's bold attack, Svitlana Dorsman's successful block, and Viktoriia Danchak's ace led Ukraine to reduce its deficit to 16:14. One of the key moments of this set was Maja Ognjenović's unexpected spike at the score of 20:18. After that, Ivan Petkov's team won only one rally - 25:19.

For the first time in this confrontation, the Ukrainians took the lead — the next set started with good news. But the representatives of Serbia did not take long to answer - 7:2. And in the future, it was they who controlled the course of events on the site - 25:16.

Starting line-up of the National team of Ukraine: Sharhorodska, Dorsman (c), Meliushkyna, Milenko, Kodola, Kraiduba, Niemtseva (l). 

The starting line-up of the National team of Serbia: Stevanović, Popović, Bošković, Busha, Uzelac, Ognjenović, Jegdić (l).