Bari, Italy, August 9, 2019 - Tokyo
Volleyball Qualification Pool C opened with a Serbia victory over
Australia after coming back from a set down to win 3-1 (26-28, 25-19,
25-19,
32-30).
Nikola Grbic, Serbia head coach: I
would rather have started with a hard victory rather than a smooth one. I know it’s
easy to say after the match but it is not a predictable conclusion, and the
results of these qualifiers are telling us the difficulties to respect the prediction. The lower-ranked teams play well because they have nothing to lose. It's important to have won and done it from
three points, we knew it wouldn't be easy, I'm happy with how we came out of
it.
Marko Jovovic, Serbia setter: No matter how we win, the
important thing is that we did. It was not easy here today with this heat. Tomorrow with Cameroon I think it will be a different race. Now we go on with
the other matches. I’m happy after this victory because today we have
understood that without pushing we cannot win easily against anyone.
Mark Lebedew, Australia head coach: In truth Serbia has not
played at the top of its level, except for Atanasijevic. We could have won, we had the power to win, I
am very disappointed for the final result.
Now we have to regenerate and think about the next challenge, with the
Italians. It will be very difficult, but we are here and we will play it.
Paul Carroll, Australia captain: When
we started the competition what worried us mostly were the conditions because
it is very hot and the Olympics are at stake. We didn't care so much about the opponent but on how we could do well and we did it. Maybe we didn't believe
really to win even though in two sets we really gave everything. If there was
another one who knows?