Captain Strashimiria Filipova was the best player in Bulgaria's win over Kazakhstan
Modena, Italy. October 4, 2014 – The FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship Italy 2014 will not see Bulgaria and Kazakhstan in Milan for the final four. However, both teams fought for their pride in the Pool F match won by Bulgaria 3-0 (25-22, 25-15, 25-13).
Bulgaria’s score table was led by Strashimira Filipova with 15. Kazakhstan’s Tatyana Mudritskaya was the top scorer with 16 points. Kazakhstan made barely half of Bulgaria’s attacking errors (17-9), but Bulgaria led in aces (5-2) and blocks (5-3).
Key facts:
• These teams had never met at the World Championship. They met once in a major competition, a Bulgaria 3-1 win in the World Grand Prix on Aug. 16 of this year.
• Kazakhstan have lost all of their six World Championship matches against sides from Europe (CEV).
• Bulgaria cannot reach the third round and cannot finish higher than ninth in this tournament. They are thereby missing out on their first top six finish since 1970.
• Each of the last 10 World Championship matches involving Kazakhstan have been decided in straight sets. Kazakhstan were on the winning side twice, whilst losing on eight occasions.
• Kazakhstan are already assured of their best finish in the competition. At the 2006 World Championship they finished in 17th place.
Kazakhstan’s debut in the historical Arena PalaPanini was carefree and convincing: Tatyana Mudritskaya brought her teammates to an early lead with four points before the first technical timeout of the match (8:5), with Bulgaria struggling to find their rhythm again after the heavy defeat sustained against the USA on Thursday. It took Elitsa Vasileva’s best effort to immediately switch the lead (9:8), consolidated by Strashimira Filipova’s fast attack (15:11). The Kazakh reaction was again in the hands of Mudritskaya, capable of spreading panic in the Bulgarian second line and allowing Sana Anarkulova to even the score from the first line (16:16). Nikolova and Filipova’s power compensated the five offensive mistakes made by Bulgaria, and eventually put some distance between the two teams (23:18); a distance Kazakhstan could not reduce in time (25:22).
Bulgaria tried to be consistent and took the lead in the second (5:1) thanks to Emiliya Nikolova’s attacks and Dobriana Rabadzhieva’s serve, forcing Kazakh coach Oleksandr Gutor to call an early timeout; and the gap grew again on Vasileva and Filipova’s serve (13:6), reaching double digits on Tsvetelina Zarkova’s first tempo (17:7). Kazakhstan put their pride into the game and reduced the gap to seven points (20:13) with Mudritskaya again, but again it was too late and Rabadzhieva closed the set (25:15).
In the third set the balancebetween the two teams was restored until the first technical timeout, with Bulgaria ahead again and Filipova simply unstoppable from the first line (8:6). Vasileva’s attack from zone 4 granted Bulgaria an even larger advantage (16:11) at the second technical timeout, as Kazakhstan seemed to lose confidence committing many mistakes especially from the second line. The distance reached double digits again (23:13) and the end of the game shortly followed (25:13).