As they vie for a spot in the Challenge Round, Polish teams will have to seize couple of home victories

2009/2010 CEV Cup - Men

Luxembourg, January 28, 2010. With the CEV Indesit Champions League enjoying a short break before the start of the Playoffs, the European Cups are still running at full speed and some well-decorated teams put up some hard-fought matches in the 4th finals of the Men’s CEV Cup as they all vie for a spot in the Challenge Round and then eventually sail from there directly to the Final Four.
Tonight Arkas IZMIR of Turkey – the team that last season celebrated a premiere sailing to an amazing victory in the GM Capital Challenge Cup – successfully opened its campaign in the 4th finals of the CEV Cup with a 3:2 victory (25-20, 29-27, 22-25, 23-25, 18-16) against Zaksa KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE of Poland to delight about 3’000 loud home fans. The Turks had qualified for this stage of the competition clipping all their matches so far in the season, first against Isku TAMPERE of Finland and then cruising past Spain’s Portol Palma MALLORCA. The return match will be played in Poland next Wednesday; both teams are still in full contention for a spot in the Challenge Round to play there Italy’s CoprAtlantide PIACENZA that dropped drown from the prelims of the Champions League.
In another match scheduled for the 4th finals of the CEV Cup Russia’s Iskra ODINTSOVO outclassed Domex Tytan AZS CZESTOCHOWA of Poland in three straight sets (25-21, 25-14, 25-15). The match started off in an extremely tough way, with the guests maintaining a very good rhythm and staying close in the score. However, Iskra ODINTSOVO backed up its ambitions for this match with a strong performance for Alexey Spiridonov and Jochen Schöps in attack, setting the pace at the second technical time-out (16:14). The Poles didn’t give up and even managed to tie the count and enjoy once again a small margin with a couple fo aces of Piotr Nowakowski (18:19). The Russians evened again at 21 with a beautiful attack of Pavel Kruglov but finally the real local hero was German star Jochen Schöps. He killed a powerful spike for the 23:21 and then Andrey Egorchev put an end to the first set with an ace. In the second set the teams put up another tough battle up to the first technical break. After that Iskra expressed a very solid block and got full control of the operations. Spiridonov and Schöps scored both some brilliant attacks and the set was quickly over. That trend did not change in the third set, as Iskra immediately seized the initiative, enjoying an impressive 10-point margin at the second technical time-out (16:6). Pavel Kruglov brought a few important points for his team and Anton Astashenkov played well with his quick balls before Alexey Spiridonov finally closed it out at 25-15. Russian coach Sergey Tsvetnov commented after the match: “I wouldn’t say that CZESTOCHOWA was an easy opponent. However, since they have many young players, they lack of experience. After a hard struggle in the first set, they slowed down and in the next two sets they had no resistance. But I don’t think that the struggle to qualify for the next stage of the CEV Cup is already over. We are waiting for a difficult return match in Poland”.
Elsewhere in that same competition, the Italians of Bre Banca Lannutti CUNEO stamped a convincing 3:1 victory in France against TOURCOING Lille Métropole, whereas E.A. PATRON needed four sets to clip the all-Greek derby against last year’s CICL runner-up Iraklis THESSALONIKI.

Click here for detailed results and additional info about the matches

Click here for a picture gallery