The battle between the current World Champions, team Poland, and the defending European Champion, team Serbia, was undoubtedly the match of the day in pool A of EuroVolley.

Close to thirteen thousand Polish fans came to TAURON Arena in Kraków to support their team knowing that they could count on a close game right from the beginning and this is exactly how it was (10-10). In the key moment of the opening set, Poland managed to build a three-points advantage (20-17) and thanks to Bartosz Kurek’s 67% effectiveness in attack gained the a first set victory (25-21).

The second set was really tight as well (12-12) and in a venue full of emotion, yellow cards were given to the coach of Poland, Vital Heynen, and Serbian outside spiker, Uroš Kovačević.  A great performace from Srećko Lisinac in the serving field allowed his team to score five points in a row and finally also to triumph by two points.

The third set started with dominatio by the Serbian site. They secured a significant advantage (12-6), but then all of a sudden Poland dragged themselves back into it (17-17). The players of Slobodan Kovac’s team returned back to the game after a small downtime won through in the end 25-20.

In the fourth set Serbia was course to close the match (12-10), but Poland refused to give up and in the most important moment played amazingly in block three times one after another and finally made it to tie-break (25:20). With a special mention needing to go to Kamil Semeniuk who came in for captain Kubiak and made a real difference for the home side.

The decisive part of the match was a show of top rallies from both teams, who played point-for-point till the end (12-12). The last word belonged to Poland, who finally became the winner (16-14) after a spike by Mateusz Bieniek.