Finland happiness after coming closer to the next phase of 2014 championship
Katowice, Poland, September 3, 2014- Finland supported by 3000 of their fans make another step for being promoted to the next phase and overcame Korea in three sets (25-22, 26-24, 25-15) in Katowice, Poland on Monday.
Finland improved their ratio to 2-0, while Korea dropped to 1-1.
Hard to receive serves followed by technically perfect spikes led Finland to gain second win at 2014 World Championship. Despite tough beginning of the game, Finaland's stars Urpo Silvula and Jukka Lehtonen were able to control the game.
Key points:
• Both teams met 10 times at the World League. Korea won the first three meetings and Finland the last seven.
• Korea defeated Tunisia 3-1 in their World Championship opener and Finland won 3-2 with Cuba in their first match.
• In the first set, Finland scored 3 points with Ace serves, while Korea didn't score any ace.
• Urpo Sivula led Finland with 14 points, while Jae-Duck Seo was the top scorer in Kore with 9 points.
• Finland made 9 aces against 1 scored by Korea.
A strong opening by Finland with a huge spike followed by Mikko Esko’s ace made a crowd of Finnish supporters really happy. Problems with reception occurred in Korean team what was immediately used by powerful Finnish spikers who led their team 5-2 ahead. Additionally, strong center spike of Jukka Lehtonen and effective triple block put more pressure on Korean team. Few points of leading was held by Finland throughout the whole first set what helped them with controlling the game. Korea’s Jae-Duck Seo and Myung-Geun Song put all their effort in spiking effectively, but they didn’t manage to catch up and the set ended 25-22 with Matti Oivanen’s left-wing spike.
Being defeated in the first set Korea came back into the game at the beginning of the second set, running up at 4-1 ahead. Doing their best in defence, Korean players managed to make some effective counterattacks. Being motivated, they played an aggressive serve, what helped them to gain 10-5 leading. However, with focusing on their first attack, Finland came to 11-9 which could be a sign of forthcoming battle in next minutes of the match. Thanks to some Korea’s errors, Finland caught up at 16-16. Point-by-point ending of the set was finally ended by out spike of Korea.
Finland displayed a strong opening of the set number three. After fine serve by Mikko Esko followed by effective spikes, it was Finland who run ahead 4-1. Adding a perfect blocks, aggressive services and astonishing spiking, Tuomas Sammelvuo’s players started to comfortably control the game with 10-1 scores. Korea put all their effort to return into the game with making a use from single Finland’s mistakes, but at 15-5 it was quite a challenge. Continuing their great performance, Finland managed to end the third set 25-15.