Tijana Boscovic spikes for Serbia against Japan as captain Maja Ognjenovic looks on
Kyoto, Japan, June 25, 2016 – Serbia defeated Japan 3-2 (25-23, 20-25, 17-25, 27-25, 15-8) in the FIVB World Grand Prix at Shimazu Arena in Kyoto on Saturday.
Maja Ognjenovic, Serbia, captain: "It was our fifth five-set match in a row. That’s not an excuse, but it’s difficult to play. It’s a pleasure to play Japan every time because of the atmosphere and the way they play – they defend a lot and never give up. At the start of the match, we allowed them to attack because our broken defence didn’t work so well. I’m happy that we found our energy in the end and were able to win."
Zoran Terzic, Serbia, coach: "As usual when we play Japan it was a difficult and very interesting game. Lots of times we finish 3-2 as we did in the World Cup and again today. We played well in attack but very badly in block and defence; there were so many easy balls we didn’t get and that is why we lost two sets. Finally, at the end of the fourth set and in the fifth set we played much better, especially in our serve, which made it easier to play block and defence. I’d like to congratulate my players, not only for this game but also for the last five games of five sets. It definitely hasn’t been easy, but in five games we’ve won four times and lost only to China, so this is good and I have to be satisfied with this."
Haruyo Shimamura, Japan: "Serbia are one of the teams that are going to the Olympics so we really wanted to win against them. At the start of match the team was able to do what we wanted to do like serving well and getting block touches, and through that we were able to get into a good attacking rhythm, but we couldn’t finish the job."
Masayoshi Manabe, Japan, coach: "We really wanted to win this match and it’s a shame we couldn’t do it in the tiebreak. I thought Tanaka and Inoue played much better than yesterday in serve-receive and spiking. But at the end of the match, Serbia were serving really well and that prevented Japan from spiking well. We had a tough time against the tall blockers in the middle.