Alexander Waibl: "What made me really happy today was our fighting spirit"
Zielona Góra, Poland, June 5, 2016 - Czech Republic boosted their morale today with the first win in this year's World Grand Prix. Canada still has none, but they will have their chance for revenge, when they move to Czech Republic for the next weekend of action in Pool C2.
Related information:
FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2016 - Media Guide
Alexander Waibl, Czech Republic coach: Today was an important day for our young team, we achieved the first victory in World Grand Prix. This match was very hard for us, because we played three matches in three days and lost two first games, additionally yesterday’s game against Poland was very challenging mentally.
What made me really happy today was our fighting spirit at the end of the third set. We showed that we can come back despite some problems. We played the two first sets really well in serve, block and defence. We had some problems with scoring but we were really good in defensive elements. In the third set we went a little bit down, we lost some of our energy and spirit, we made lot of faults and it looked like we had to play another set. But then at the second technical timeout I made a double substitution, new players gave a lot of power and step by step we started to play our volleyball, our good service and block allowed us to close out this match in three sets. This tournament in Zielona Góra was super important for our young, inexperienced team. I’m looking forward to the next World Grand Prix tournament in Czech Republic.
Arnd Ludwig, Canada coach: We started the game better, we were sharper in our acitons. I think our main problem was serve receive again, but that is something we're gonna work with. We had our little struggles, especialy in the third set when we were up 22-18 and Tereza Rossi came and had this great series of serves. I think that broke our neck in the end of this last set, but I think we came out of the break a little better. That was what I had expected us to play the whole game. We started the first two sets well, but we played only until like 15, 16 and we stopped playing and this is something that we have to learn from.
Michaela Mlejnkova, Czech Republic: Good serve and defence were probably the most important things for us in today's match. Our first match was a little bit nervous, but now we play our own voleyball and it is much better.
Jessica Niles, Canada: I think we came out strong in each set, but let the other team run too many points in the end. So we need to be better at maintaining our play throughout sets and the entire match. Tereza Rossi was definetly a good server, today she was better at the end of the game. We'll definetly try to be better next game against them next Firday.