DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Dominican Republic Head Coach Marcos Kwiek

Good afternoon, our performance in the start of the match was a little bit shaky. We reinforced our power in the second and third sets and began to play better. It was what we are looking for. We will get ourselves more prepared for tomorrow’s match.

Comment on the match between China and Netherlands tomorrow

We are more concerned about our opponent, Poland presently. We have no time to assess other teams’ progress.

Dominican Republic Captain Milagros Cabral de la Cruz

It was our second time playing against Netherlands in this tournament. Our flow was better today and we played more fluidly as a unit. It was an excellent match as well as a good preparation for tomorrow’s important competition.

Critical reasons of losing the last two sets despite the tight points

Some of our team players are still very young. We were a bit over-confident at the beginning and could not get into the right rhythm in the beginning. Once we grasped the rhythm, we started to play better. 

NETHERLANDS

Netherlands Head Coach Avital Selinger

We played the first set with high intensity today. We delivered quality serves, and the percentage of a successful attack is over 70%. The Dominican team started to play very well ever since the second set began. They gave an opportunity for our players to go through an emotional test. The match today after all is very enjoyable for the audience.

Comparison of yesterday’s and today’s performance

The first set was a continuation of yesterday’s flow and similar to how we played against Dominican Republic in Taipei. They played better this time and we did make some unforced mistakes. We tried to catch up in the second set and we were not able to dominate the game. The third set was a quality set; Dominican Republic did very well in defense and the incredible spikes by them forced us to enhance our intensity. We missed a few chances to clinch the set as we lacked some motivation to earn the last two points. We have to work hard to gain every single point. Overall speaking, it was a very different match as compared to yesterday’s.

Our concerns

What we are concerned about is to make progress every day. We will not focus on talking about winning and losing or predicting the outcome of the coming matches. We concentrate on the execution of skills and what we are able to do. I believe that if both China and we can perform our best, the match on Sunday is going to be a nice one.

Netherlands Captain Manon Flier

We had a lot of pressure in the first set because the Dominican teams performed very well. In the second set, we tried to give our opponent some pressure. However, they seized the rhythm with good defense. I am satisfied with our performance today because we played well as a team. It was a nice show for the public.

Any particular player in China who you think is threatening to your team

We have no time to study their forms and strategies. China is a very strong team with solid blocks and aggressive attacks. However, there is no particular player whom I am in fear of. I am very excited about tomorrow’s game.