The Winners of the European Tour Round in Prato Nevoso

First the comeback of the Italian 'queens', then Polish revenge: Italy (Anna Dalmazzo, Sara Breidenbach and Sofia Arcaini) and Poland (Piotr Groszek, Michal Matyja, Karol Szczepanik and Mikolaj Kaczmarek) claimed win at CEV Europan Tour in Prato Nevoso (Italy) on Sunday, March 31st. Italy defeated 2-1 Turkey in the Women's final whilst Poland beated 2-0 France.

THE MEN'S TOURNAMENT: FRANCE KO IN THE FINAL

Easter day started with Men's QF and Women's semis. The most balanced match of the quarterfinals was the one between Poland and Italy 10: after losing the opening set (10-15), the Poles won 19-17 and 15-13. Italia 2 easily prevailed over Uruguay, as well as France over Switzerland. The local fans' derby saw Italy 1 beat Italy 6.

However, the race of the Italian champions Berger, Burgmann and Seeber was stopped in the semi-final by the Poles. A few minutes later, Italy 2 (Di Risio, Camozzi and Geromin) gave way to a really solid and complete France team. Italy 1 defeated Italy 2 in the head-to-head for the bronze medal.

In the Gold final, France went to lead 9-6 in the first set, then Groszek marked Polish comeback and overtake, before scoring the decisive point (15-12). The French led 7-4 also in the second, but the Poland were able to come back again thanks to a good performance of all their components. An error from France gave the golden point to the Poles.

WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT: TURKEY ESCAPE, ITALY WIN

The Italian champions Breidenbach, Arcaini and Dalmazzo eliminated rather easily (15-8, 15-9) Hungary 2, with 9 points on the scoresheet for both Breidenbach and Dalmazzo in the first semi-final. The Turk Yalcin, Celebi, Sencel and Sahin beat the Czech Republic in two sets. The Czech girls marked an excellent start, leading 6-3, then Turkey's strength unvealed, both on an individual level and as a team.

Turkey had a great start in the final instead, going immediately 4-0 with Sencel standing out, then going on a new run to 13-9. Breidenbach took care of shaking Italy with blockouts and aces, but Yalcin found the set point to make it 15-12. The trend of the second was driven by two aces from Arcaini. Turkey made too many errors, even after a substitution: another "poisonous" serve from Sofia (15-6)equilizes the situation: 1-1. Once found their shots and solidity again, with Dalmazzo practically unbeatable, Italy run away to the final success in