RIMINI, Italy, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Both Serbia and Slovenia staged remarkable comebacks 3-2 here on Thursday in the 2021 men's Volleyball Nations League.

Serbia twice came from a set down to force a tie-break to beat Iran 21-25, 25-15, 26-28, 25-22, 15-8 for their sixth win.

Marko Podrascanin, who capped his 300th game for Serbia, stuffed the Iranians eight times to equal the record of most blocks in a single VNL match set by USA's Max Holt against France in 2019.

"Today is my 300th match in the national team, so I'm really proud," said Podrascanin after the match. "I hope that my team, my family and all the fans of volleyball are proud of my career so far, but I will not stop - I want to play more because it gives me a lot of satisfaction and it's great to play."

Another match saw Slovenia staged an excellent comeback 17-25, 19-25, 25-23, 25-19, 15-9 to beat France.

Rok Mozic got a game-high 20 points and Klemen Cebulj contributed 16 points for Slovenia while Thibault Rossard and Earvin Ngapeth pocketed 14 points respectively for France.

"Winning the game after being 0-2 down feels amazing," said Alen Pajenk from Slovenia. "I'm happy that we did. We started very badly on serve, especially in the first two sets. But then Rok Mozic came in and he gave us some freshness. We had much more energy in the last three sets."

Thursday's games also saw Argentina smash Australia 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-20), Russia beat Canada 3-1 (25-18, 25-18, 23-25, 25-23), the United States eased past Germany 3-0 (25-12, 25-18, 29-27), Poland defeated the Netherlands 3-0 (25-14, 25-17, 25-16), Japan overcame Italy 3-2 (21-25, 25-22, 22-25, 25-15, 15-9), and Brazil swept Bulgaria 3-0 (25-16, 25-22, 25-12). Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)