European players dominate individual statistics at Tokyo 2020
Feature
As the women’s competition continues at the Olympic Games, the first signs of teams’ good form can be seen across both pools. Serbia is the only European team to yet lose a set at the Olympics as they keep a leader position in Pool A. Across in Pool B three fellow-European teams have already locked horns with each other - ROC and Italy met on Sunday, while Turkey took on the Italians in their second match in the tournament. While the results vary between the teams, European players stood out from the crowd with their performance making a difference both for their teams and their own individual statistics.
After an impressive 28-point performance in the opening match against Dominican Republic, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see Serbian Tijana Boskovic dropping a notch in that element. Instead Boskovic went for a whopping 34-point tally against Japan on Tuesday, matching a score recorded by American Jordan Thompson the same day. Both scoring performances put Tijana on top of the Best Scorers statistic with 62 points so far, while Thompson follows with 54 points of her own. The third position is taken by the Italian Paola Egonu, who recorded 47 points - 18 points scored against ROC, followed by 29 points against Turkey.
All three players took over the top three positions among Best Attackers. Boskovic leads again with 55 winning spikes at almost 60% efficiency. USA’s Jordan Thompson showed a slightly better efficiency at 63%, but her winning spikes tally is currently at 46. Paola Egonu, third among the players, scored 40 winning spikes at 50.6% efficiency.
Egonu keeps the top position among the Best Servers, alongside Korean Kim Heejin. Both players scored 4 aces each, with Egonu taking 19 attempts at the service line. ROC’s Irina Voronkova and Turkish Cansu Ozbay trail behind with 3 aces each, alongside American Jordyn Poulter and Japan’s Kurogo Ai.
But the true European power stands out in the Block category, with first 6 spots being taken by the players of Serbia, Italy, Turkey and ROC. Serbian Milena Rasic, unsurprisingly, is leading the party with 8 stuff blocks and 8 rebounds. Irina Koroleva, Sarah Fahr, Mina Popovic and Zehra Gunes follow with 7 stuff blocks, while Malinov Ofelia closes the top 6 with 6 blocks. Gunes and Koroleva proves very successful with rebounds, having recorded 14 and 13 rebounds respectively.
Malinov was also recognised for her setting, keeping a third position behind American Jordyn Poulter and Brazilian Fernanda Macris. Silvija Popovic is currently the third best digger after 2 matches, trailing behind Brenda Castillo from Dominican Republic and Justine Wong-Orantes from team USA. European players shine also in another defensive category: Bojana Milenkovic is currently second best receiver, with Turkey’s Meliha Ismailoglu taking the third position.
Women’s competition returns on Thursday, giving the players more chances to improve both their team and individual scores. You can check full details on individual statistics below!