Women’s Champions League Round 4 Lineup Now Complete
News
The last two matches of the preliminary Round 3 of Europe’s premiere club competition, the CEV Champions League Volley 2022 – Women took place last night, thus completing the lineup for the Pool Phase of the competition.
Serbia’s ZOK UB and Ukraine’s SC Prometey Dnipro managed to see off Olympiacos Piraeus from Greece and Viteos Neuchatel UC from Switzerland respectively to become the last two teams qualified in the Pool Phase for the first time in their history.
At the Melina Merkouri Rentis Arena in Greece, Olympiacos went on the court confident that they can obtain the qualification after a good result and a solid performance away from home, where they managed to win two sets.
However, ZOK UB was more motivated than ever and started the match on the front foot winning the first set comfortably (19-25) and narrowly edging the second set (23-25).
At this point, the only option left for Olympiacos was to win every set from then onwards to push the tie into a Golden Set. The third set proved how important qualification was to both teams as they fought tremendously for every point. In the end, ZOK UB won the third set as well (31-33) for a straights set win and a valuable spot in the Pool Phase of the CEV Champions League Volley.
Saskia Hippe scored 16 points for Olympiacos in their losing effort. Liljana Rankovic top scored for ZOK UB with 19 points, as Andjela Veselinovic claimed the award for the Most Valuable Player of the match.
Angeliki-Melina Emmanouilidou, player of Olympiacos: “To qualify for the group stage of the Champions League was definitely one of the main goals of our team. We thought we could get the victory at home, but we did not succeed. Now, we have to bow our heads and look ahead to the next matches we have. I believe that we are not yet 100% ready to show our true self on the court. This is not an excuse, but we must learn to deal with such games as well.”
Gil Ferrer Cutino, head coach of Olympiacos: “We did not play as we should. We had an issue with our block and we did not manage to win. We wanted to play in the pool stage of the CEV Champions League but we lost the match today and we did not succeed. Now, we continue our course, as we will play in the CEV Cup.”
Andjela Veselinovic“First of all, I am very proud of my team. We played a very good game, but I think we can do even better than we did today. Everything was positive for us tonight as we won the game and qualified for the group stage of the CEV Champions League.”
Player of ZOK UB and MVP
Marijana Boričić, head coach of ZOK UB: “I want to congratulate my team. It is a big success for us and for our club, because we have been trying to achieve this goal for many years. Tonight, I think we had a great game in all areas. We were especially good in reception and block. We still have a lot of room for improvement and that is what we will try to do.”
In the last match of Round 3, SC Prometey Dnipro hosted the Swisss from Viteos Neuchatel UC at the Palace of Sports Yunost in Zaporizhzhia feeling very close to the next round after a massive 0-3 win away from home.
Viteos started the match better and slowly worked up to winning the first set (22-25). However, from then onwards there was only one team that looked in control of the match and that was Prometey who stormed their way into winning the next 3 sets confidently (25-16, 25-20, 25-13).
Looking forward to the next round, following the allocation decided by the Drawing of Lots for the competition, SC Prometey Dnipro will go to Pool A where they will face Developres SkyRes RZESZÓW (POL), DRESDNER SC (GER), and Lokomotiv KALININGRAD Region (RUS).
As for the Serbians from ZOK UB, they will be going into Pool E where they will be facing quite a tough challenge in the form of A. Carraro Imoco CONEGLIANO from Italy, none other than the reigning champions, Fatum NYIREGYHAZA (HUN) and Grupa Azoty Chemik POLICE (POL).
