Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 16, 2018 - Jovana Stevanovic's ten blocks helped Serbia to easily see off Germany 3-0 (25-16, 25-21, 25-17) and claim their second straight win in Wednesday's action at the women's Volleyball Nations League.
Scandicci's Stevanovic led the way for an incredibly efficient Balkan wall with ten kills to her name, almost half of her team's 22. The 25 year-old also scored three spikes to round off a stunning performance.
On top of that, Brankica Mihajlovic scored 19 points as Serbia showed they came to Brazil with hunger for success.
Germany made too many mistakes to trouble Zoran Terzic's team: the usually formidable duo of Louisa Lippmann (5 spikes out of 23 attempts) and Maren Fromm (3 out of 14) was limited to under fifteen points in total.
Both teams came into the game off victories of Brazil (3-1) and Japan (3-0) but history was on the side of Germany as the Balkan side have only beaten Germany once before in a world competition, at the 2014 FIVB World Grand Prix.
But statistics are meant to be contradicted and the Serbs took an early lead thanks to a commanding performance from their wall, who managed seven kills in the first set alone. Germany was too clumsy and, when Lippman failed to hit the target once again, Serbia easily claimed the first set after another block by Stevanovic (25-16).
It was more of the same in the second with Germany hitting wide while Mihajlovic and Ana Bjelica turned on the style. This gave Serbia a commanding lead. But Germany is a formidable opponent and clawed back into the set when Lippman finally found the instruction manual with back-to-back spikes. It just wasn't enough, however, and Serbia surged to a 2-0 lead (25-21).
With the wind in its sails, Serbia cruised to an easy victory as the Olympic silver medallists didn't stutter: Tijana Boškovic came on but the young superstar didn't have her work cut ouf for her as Germany couldn't mount a challenge for the Serbs. Mistake after mistake gave Serbia an insurmontable lead to finish off their sweep (25-17).