MATCH INFO

Lima, Peru, July 24, 2011 - In the closing day of Pool D of FIVB Volleyball Women’s Junior World Championship Peru 2011, Italy obtained an important victory to enter the top eight bracket of the tournament following a 25-14, 25-15, 25-20 win over Serbia in the first match of the day in Lima at Eduardo Dibos Coliseum.

Italy end Pool B with a 2-1 record and six points, while Serbia end with a 1-2 record and 3 points. Serbia will played for the 9-16 classification.

The top scorers of the match for Italy were Valentina Diouf with 17 points, next to Caterina Bosetti with 14 points and Chiara Scarabelli with 13 points. The top scorers for Serbia were Ana Bjelica with 11 points, next to Jovana Stevanovic with six points. Italy out-blocked Serbia 9-4 and benefited from 20 errors by Serbia.

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In the beginning of the first set, Italy started with a good performance with an 8-4 advantage. Diouf´s attack was the cause of this partial victory reached at the first technical time out. At the second technical time out, the good performance of Diouf defined the score to 16-9. Serbia tried to recover their score, but Italy kept working hard and the point differences grew to 19-10. Italy kept improving their blocking and serve, which stopped all the Serbian attacks and the match reached the 24-10. In this moment, Serbia started to attack even harder than the beginning, but it was not enough and Diouf (six attacks, one block and one ace in the set) defined the set to 25-14 in 21 minutes of game.

The second set had a tight start as Serbia got better and before the first technical time out, the set was 7-5. but the serve of Floriana Bertone (two points in the set) defined the point to Italy 8-5. The match kept going and the Italy´s block started to stop Serbia and the point difference grew to six points. Italy kept improving their game, and they reached the second technical time out 16-9. The bad receptions of Danica Radenkovic allowed Italy to reach 19-12. Italy's serve was better every time until they reached the 24-15. The last Serbian serve was mistaken by Bianka Busa and the set ended 25-15 in 20 minutes.

In the third set, Serbia started with a point difference of two, but the Italian game got stronger and they tied the score at 3-3. Italy improved and at the first technical time out, they reached the 8-6. The Serbian service started to improve and they reached within one at 11-10, but the bad serve of Maja Savic (nine points in the match) returned the ball to Italy, which recovered quickly to 13-10. After the first time out that Serbia asked for, their game was stopped by Italy and the set was 14-13 in favor of Serbia. Then, Italy asked for their first time out and the score became tied. Serbia's Ivana Lukovic (three points in the match) failed a serve and Italy reached the second technical time out leading 16-15. Serbia started to fail and the Serbia coach Ratko Pavlicevic asked for their second time out down 19-16. Serbia started to attack better, but one blocking mistake gave back the ball to Italy and they defined the game thanks to Chiara Scarabelli (13 points in the match) serve at 25-20 in 24 minutes.