France coach Laurent Tillie can enjoy the semifinals
Kraków, Poland, July 15, 2016 – France beat Serbia in a tie-breaker on Friday afternoon in Tauron Arena as both teams booked their place in the semifinals leving hosts Poland blank.
Laurent Tillie, coach of France: I am very happy to qualify for the semifinals and about what my guys showed on the court of course. But today it was not only about volleyball, because of the situation in Nice. I’m from this city and my players were not focused only on the game. We wanted to show life and joy on the court and I think we did it.
Nikola Grbic, coach of Serbia: As I said yesterday, I wanted my team to approach good and to win this game. We had it until 16-15 in the first set, when France had a good run with their serve. France played risky in the serve and their ratio of aces and errors was much better. I am happy that we came back after the second set. I saw the kind of mentality which I expect from my players. Now we are waiting for the result of second match today and our opponent in semifinal.
Benjamin Toniutti, captain of France: For us it is really good to make it to the semifinals in the second consecutive year. Today we were 2-0 in front but again could not stay in the game. We have a problem with this, but we are happy that we can play in the final phase.
Dragan Stankovic, captain of Serbia: We played this game like we played all games in the group. We played to win at all cost, without calculating who we face in the semifinals. Mentally we are ready to work with every difficulty. We claimed the first place in this group. We did our best to win the first two sets, but France served good, making direct points from serve. It was not easy to come back form 2-0 down but we did it. We are glad of the promotion to the semifinals and now we are waiting who we will take on in the semis.
Marko Ivovic, Serbia: France always play very well, they started this match very strong and fast. We were able to come back to the game, although we were losing 2-0, but we weren’t able to keep our level in the fifth set. Our main problem was that we weren’t able to handle with some easy actions and it made a difference. We are ranked on the first place in our group, but we didn’t calculate against who we are going to play and who will qualify to the semifinals: Poland or France. We just came here to win. I am sorry that Poland won’t play in semifinals and that we lost to France again.