Eurovolley 1/4 Finals: France go to semifinals! Boyer destroys Italy with 9 aces!

2 min read

24 September 2019 Ivan

France have progressed to the semifinals of the 2019 CEV European Volleyball Championship after demolishing Italy in straight sets!
What a match for the hosts, and now Paris awaits his country’s volleyball national team! France overhelm Italy in the quarter-finals of the 2019 EuroVolley in front of 7,000 own fans at the packed Parc des Expositions Hall XXL in Nantes, who could not remain seated for most of the match, giving a really huge support to their team: 3-0 (25:16, 27:25, 25:14).
So Italy failed to reach semifinals at the continental championship (which they won six times in their history) for the second consecutive time, and the fourth time in the last 30 years. In the finish of the second set they had three set points in their hands but nothing to do.
One of Italy’s main hitters Ivan Zaytsev played a really bad match tonight: he scored 2 points and his attack success rate was unbelievably poor as well (7%). Only one of his 14 attacks has been converted into a point! And he played all three sets. The head coach Gianlorenzo Blengini even tried to wake him up by moving him to the outside hitter position in the second set, putting Gabriele Nelli to play as an opposite. Nothing changed.
Stéphen Boyer was terrific for France. He scored 25 points, including 9 aces, while Italy’s top scorer was Osmany Juantorena with only 9 points.

Stephen Boyer – France’s opposite:
“We knew it would be difficult today. The game in Montpellier was nothing compared to tonight. We played better, we made the game for ourselves. I felt great personally, in attack and in serve, but we are team that always plays altogether. Now we’re going to go to Paris to beat whoever shows up and get to the final.”

Ivan Zaytsev – Italy’s captain:
“We were nervous at first, it was a real psychological war. At the end of set 2, I had two opportunities to draw the match but we made too many mistakes tonight to win.”