Aguascalientes, Mexico, July 20, 2019 - Italy’s heart stopping semifinal victory bouncing back from a two-set deficit to Turkey 3-2 (19-25, 24-26, 25-21, 25-16, 18-16) leads to a clash with Japan for the FIVB Volleyball Women’s U20 World Championship title match.
Alice Alexandra Tanase, outside hitter of Italy: “We weren’t focused enough in the beginning, we weren´t as aggressive as Turkey, they really wanted to win. When Italy started to play it was harder for Turkey. We reached a point in the match when we didn’t want to fail so our attacks lost effectiveness, there was tension and we were staring at each other thinking about how much we have worked for this and we didn’t want to mess things up. This victory gives us more energy to battle for the gold tomorrow and give it our best shot; hopefully Japan will lose their first match to us.”
Rachele Morello and Marina Lubian celebrate their semifinal victory to Turkey
Masimo Bellano, coach of Italy: “For me the match developed in three parts; the first set we didn´t pass at all so our side-out was struggling; in the second set we found better balance but still there was something missing; finally, from the third set forward we switched our outside hitter, it worked better and our blocking improved along with the defense to control the match better. The tie-break was tough. My players have a lot of experience in important tournaments, they are used to battle to fight up to the end, and they know the match doesn’t stop until the ball falls.”
Sahin Catma, coach of Turkey: “We served very well during the first two sets and we blocked well too. From the third set on, Italy’s serves improved while ours began to fail and our reception had many deficiencies; these are the basics in volleyball: service and reception; with these two elements missing it is not unusual for a team to stay behind and lose. Now we will forget today’s performance to focus on winning the bronze medal against Russia tomorrow.”