Saturday’s first fixture in Zadar was an extremely important match for both teams. Croatia were hoping for their second win, which would open them the doors to the next stage of the competition, while Belarus needed some points after losing to Italy the night before. In the end, the hosts secured their second 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-15) victory in as many matches.

It was a match between old acquaintances from the European Golden League, where Croatia were triumphant twice this year (3-2 and 3-0). The Belarus girls are from the Russian school, so they are very tall and they attack a lot of high balls. Croatia’s game, on the other hand, is more versatile, and the girls are quicker.

The first set was quite even for both teams at the beginning. They both were looking for weak points in their opponent’s game. Croatia won the first set, thanks to four points from the block and better serve reception. The hosts started the second set with a 3-1 run, but they missed to increase the advantage, mainly because of their unintentional mistakes (9 until the end of the set). Belarus became more aggressive with the block, which resulted in five points for them in this compartment, so the end of the set was pretty narrow and stressful, but Croatia won it thanks to an ace of their captain Samanta Fabris after a successful challenge. The Croatian girls opened the third set with an incredible run of eight unanswered points. The end of the second set seemed to have broken Belarus concentration. Their coach called two time-outs, but it did not help. Their game was somehow ‘gone’. Croatia finished the third set with a landslide 25-15 score to celebrate their second 3-0 win in Zadar.