Serbia to play for the women's bronze medal in Tokyo 2020
Recap
Serbia competed on Friday in the Olympic Games semifinal against USA, following their successful Tokyo 2020 campaign across the preliminary round and the quarterfinal against Italy. Serbians and Americans have met each other in the semifinal during previous Olympic Games in Rio 2016, when Serbia claimed the victory in five sets. This time around it was team USA who have reached the gold medal match after beating Serbia in straight sets.
Serbia vs USA 0-3 (19-25, 15-25, 23-25)
This game couldn’t have been more different to their previous semifinal clash. USA dominated the first two sets, keeping Serbia at a relatively safe point distance across both parts. Serbians managed to keep close to Americans in the third set, but it was not enough to prolong the game into at least four sets. Americans have outscored Serbia in all elements, gaining 40 winning spikes, 12 stuff blocks and 6 aces. Serbians managed to score 32 winning spikes and 8 stuff blocks, but haven’t produced a single set. USA’s great performance at the service line was one of the strong points of the team against the Serbian side. Tijana Boskovic was once again the top scorer of her team and in the entire game, with 19 points (16 winning spikes and 3 aces). The attacking and serving power on USA’s side was led by Andrea Drews and Jordan Larson who scored 17 and 15 points respectively. Drews had 12 winning spikes, 2 blocks and 3 aces, while Jordan added 11 winning spikes, 2 stuff blocks and 2 aces of her own.
“We're disappointed. We were not playing at our normal level at all. The passion was there but our game was not functioning. We will move on. The bronze medal is also a win for us”, said Tijana Boskovic after the match.
Serbian team still has a chance to leave Tokyo with a medal. They will be competing for the bronze on Sunday against the loser of the second semifinal between Brazil vs Korea.
The bronze medal match is set to be played on 8th of August at midnight GMT.
Maja Ognjenovic"I think this loss is due to a bad case of the nerves. We did not play at a high level. It wasn't until the last set that we got our game together. We had energy but we also felt fear. We know the Americans very well and we thought this team was beatable, but their injuries did not affect them and we just didn't get going until it was too late. We didn't handle the pressure."
Setter of Serbia
Karch Kiraly"I expect every day to be harder. Our team executed the game plan to near-perfection. Tijana Boskovic is one of the world's great, great players, one of the most lethal. She's been winning her attacks at an average (efficiency) of 38-39 percentage-wise and we held her to 12%. That's huge. We were hoping to keep her in the low 30s.”
Coach of USA