Osaka, Japan, September 27, 2019 – USA defeated Russia 3-2 (24-26, 25-22, 25-22, 17-25, 15-8) on the ninth day of the FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Cup at Osaka’s Edion Arena on Friday.
USA coach Karch Kiraly: "First, I want to thank the Japan Volleyball Association and all their colleagues for organizing a great tournament with strong organization and great hospitality. Second, I want to say congratulations to Russia, who have been playing a great tournament and coach Busato has done a nice job. We knew today would be a difficult contest because Russia has been playing very good volleyball. Both teams pushed each other and both teams learned something about our strengths and weaknesses. Tomorrow, we play Cameroon, so the team now just needs to rest and tomorrow morning we will talk about our game plan for that match."
USA captain Jordan Larson: "We knew it would be a tough match. Russia is a good team and they’ve been playing well in this tournament, but we stood up to the challenge. We had a bit of a lull in the fourth set and came back in the fifth and I’m really proud of our team. I think we stayed diligent in our jobs when it mattered and each person contributed in their own way. We got into a really good service run in the fifth set and this created problems on their side of the net and we took advantage on our side."
USA player Andrea Drews: "We knew this would be difficult because Russia have been playing good and have been getting better and better. I’m proud of how we rallied back in the fifth set and how we had some people give us the boost we needed. And I’m proud of how our team responded. I think this team is blessed to have talented setters and Jordyn Poulter did a nice job for us."
Russia coach Sergio Busato: "My impression today is it was very good. I feel positive because we played as one team against the best in the world, so I can be satisfied overall for how we played. We have to analyse the reason why we lost."
Russia Irina Voronkova: “We tried to play here step by step, we take one win here, and another there. We tried to do our best, but maybe we were a little bit tired, as with all teams. Maybe we have lost a bit of energy, that in some points or moments, we cannot maintain the same energy. For now, maybe we need to relax a little bit, and later on think about our remaining matches because we need our game to go up.”