Slovenia came back from a set down and improved their chances at a ticket to the Final Four of the 2021 FIVB Men’s Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Italy with a 3-1 win over Iran after an epic fourth set.
Slovenia on Thursday made a dismal start in their tough match against Iran to go down in the opening set 14-25, but found their rhythm in the following sets, hitting back devastatingly to score 25-20, 25-19, 32-30 for the eventual 3-1 victory.
Klemen Cebulj scored a match-high 21 points including 20 attacks for Slovenia, while Meisam Salehi led Iran with 17 points. Teammates Saber Kazemi added 16, Milad Ebadipour 12 and Mohammad Eraghi Mousavi Seyed 10 on the Iran’s losing efforts.
Iran’s Saeid Marouf said at the virtual Mixed Zone: “We need our best and we tried until the last point of the game, but in the important moments they started to defend better. Slovenia is one of the best teams in the tournament, they have a great chance to qualify to the Final Four.”
Tine Urnaut of Slovenia said: “It was a very important victory for us today. I’m very happy, because after the first set, when we didn’t start well, we managed to change our mentality, approach, energy in the second set and from then it was still uphill but we were fighting, we were aggressive, we played in all elements like we are used to.
“And the last set was a really amazing thriller and I’m happy that we managed to play calm and consistently even in the most important moments. Our expectation ahead of the last week of the round robin is to play every match as well as we can, on the highest possible level. We only think about the next upcoming match, after three days of rest we need to get our energy back and we will focus on our next opponents, and only think about one ball, one set one match and that’s it.”
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