France: great comeback of Montpellier in big match vs. Tours on recovery match of Round 7

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5 January 2021 Robin

After the Christmas break, the French Ligue A is back and the first of eight recovery matches scheduled during what should have been the stop for qualifying for the European championships, is immediately a big match. Montpellier wins it, despite the absence of the starting setter Javier Gonzalez (in his place the young Gill). They manages to win on the field of defending champions of Tours at the tie-break after the first 2 sets that instead had seen the home team dominate. However, Tours conspicuously dropped in attack in the third and fourth sets, while the guests fish well from the bench with Panou scoring 7 points only in the 4th set. The tiebreak is very balanced and the difference is made with Gill’s block on Wounembaina (11:12) and Sclater’s counterattack (12:14), while the Argentine Palacios (4 points in the tiebreak after seeing third fourth from the bench) signs the last point with an attack from the second line (13:15).
Montpellier thus overtakes Narbonne and Cannes and takes the top of the table.