Unstoppable Indra powers Czechia to third win
Recap
The clash between neighbouring countries Czechia and Slovakia opened the fourth day of action at the Palapanini in Modena. Powered by an unstoppable Patrik Indra, Czechia delivered an almost flawless performance to cruise to a straight-set victory and secure their third win of the tournament - enough to guarantee their place in the knockout stage alongside hosts Italy. Later today, Slovenia will take on Greece in another Pool A encounter.
Slovakia - Czechia 0-3 (21-25, 14-25, 20-25)
Slovakia and Czechia are no strangers to each other. The two neighbouring countries even played two friendly matches at the beginning of the summer, so both sides were highly motivated for this derby, especially Slovakia, who were chasing their first victory after taking a set from Italy on Sunday. On one side, the duo of Lukas Vašina and Patrik Indra, and on the other, Julius Firkal and Erik Gulak, exchanged powerful spikes as the teams battled point for point. Slovakia were the first to establish a two-point lead, with Daniel Sellong’s attack making it 14-12. Czechia quickly levelled the score, however, before an impressive service run from Antonín Klimens, which started with an ace, helped them surge to a 22-18 advantage. Slovakia tried to fight their way back, but Vašina proved unstoppable, scoring nine points in the set at an outstanding 89% attack success rate. The Czech outside hitter then delivered the decisive blow to close out the set 25-21.
The second set was complete domination from Czechia. Back-to-back aces from Matouš Drahonovský gave the Czechs an early 3-0 lead, which they quickly extended to 11-3 with Lukas Vašina at the service line. Slovakia struggled to find an answer to Czechia’s powerful and precisely placed attacks, as they surged further ahead to 16-5. Czechia were almost flawless offensively, finishing the set with an impressive 79% attack success rate, while also putting Slovakia under constant pressure from the service line with five aces. There was no way back for Slovakia, as Czechia comfortably closed out the set 25-14 to move within one set of victory.
Although Slovakia tried their best to stay in the fight, Czechia maintained control, powered by Patrik Indra, Lukas Vašina and Antonín Klímens. They raced to a 9-4 lead and quickly extended it to 13-7, combining effective blocking with powerful attacking. Erik Gulak, who scored six kills in the set, and Andrej Billich helped Slovakia fight their way back to 20-17, but Czechia once again showed their strength in the decisive stage. They closed out the set 25-20 to seal their third victory of the tournament.
Patrik Indra topped the scorers’ chart with 18 points, including one ace, one block and 16 kills at an impressive 84% success rate. Lukas Vašina added 13 points, with 12 kills at 80%, while Erik Gulak led Slovakia with 13 points.
Patrik Indra“It’s a very important win for us. It gives us our place in the next round, but the most important thing for us was that we changed our approach in the third set. In the previous matches, the third set was really bad, so I’m happy that we kept our focus in the third set and earned this straight-set win. I’m very satisfied with my performance, and I’m also really happy that I could play this game because my health hasn’t been so good over the last two weeks. So I’m happy that I played and that we won, but now we need to focus on the next games.”
captain of Czechia
Jakub Ihnat“The end of the first set was very tough for us. It was quite even, but in the end we lost, and I think that after this first set we locked down. We really turned off. The key word for our team should be ‘brave’ - we need to be brave and play bravely, but that didn’t really happen in the second and third sets. This is very disappointing for us because, as I said before, we have no star in the team and we have to play as a team. Today, it seemed like we had no energy, or I don’t know what happened. We have to take a look at this match and improve for the next games, which will be decisive.”
captain of Slovakia