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Russia and Poland on top in two brilliant matches

Rzeszow, Poland, July 15, 2005 – The opening day scores of the 2006 Men’s World Championship third round tournament – Europe Pool L on Friday may not resemble classic contests with Poland beating Estonia 3-1 and Russia overcoming Bulgaria 3-0 but the set scores tell a different story.

After playing one of the longest sets in World Championship history since the rally point scoring system was introduced in 2000, Russia beat Bulgaria, ranked 16th in the world, 39-37, 26-24, 25-23.

Despite the straight sets victory to the world number four, it was still a match of the tightest proportions between two powerful sides with the three sets lasting just short of 90 minutes. Bulgaria, who advanced to Poland by winning a second round tournament at home in May, were coming off a fifth-place finish at the 2005 World League while Russia, who have been automatically seeded for this tournament, are the 2002 World Championship silver medalists.
Pic: Michal Winiarski receives for Poland
In the earlier match, the 49th ranked Estonians, who are aiming to reach the World Championship Final Round after starting the tournament in the first round, made a superb start by winning the first set 25-23 against Poland, who are ranked eighth in the world after finishing fourth in last week’s World League, before losing the following three sets 25-16, 25-18, 25-20.

“This was a very important match for us,” Polish captain Piotr Gruszka said. “We felt a lot of pressure because we want to reach the Final Round of the World Championships. After the World League finals in Belgrade our mentality was the most important thing, especially since we played with a weaker team today. Surprisingly, Estonia played very well. They fought until the last ball. Fortunately for us, after the first part we showed better tactics and therefore were able to control the game.”

Pool L is the first of four European third round tournaments being played this month and since Europe has nine vacancies in the final round in Japan, the top two sides from each tournament will claim final round tickets. The third placed side in each tournament will enter a four-way play-off for one remaining ticket.

Day two sees Poland play Bulgaria at 19:00 local time (17:00 GMT) followed by Estonia taking on Russia at 21:00 (19:00 GMT).