Jordan Larson is one of the most productive player for USA
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 10, 2016 – USA’s Coach Karch Kiraly admitted his team played at its best in the tournament against Serbia but reminded everyone about his previous predictions that no team will leave the strong Pool B undefeated.
United States became the first team to advance to the quarterfinals and remained as the only team with no losses in the group. They still have to play Italy and China in the preliminary phase.
Karch Kiraly, Coach of United States: I would say yes, this is the best we’ve played in the tournament. Probably every team in our pool has some things in what they need to get better. The victory over Serbia and the move to the quarterfinals give us more confidence, but as I have said before this is strong group and I think no team will go undefeated. Players are enjoying the moment and after ten minutes we have to think in Italy because in the tournament we face a strong team every two days.
Foluke Akinradewo, Player of United States: I am really proud of my team. Today we played with better rhythm than in the other two matches. We are the first team to qualify to the next round and that is good for our confidence but now we have to focus on Italy, our next opponent. Definitely I am happy with the victory and the overall performance of the team.
Rachael Adams, Player of United States: Hats off to Serbia, they really played a great match. They pushed us and I think we pushed each other. You couldn’t ask for a better game than two teams going at it.
It was a really balanced match. We were going back and forth and we were taking some great swings and so are we. There was a very great atmosphere to play in. There was really good volleyball tonight.
Serbia are a great team and they’re going to come at us. They have great middle blockers and they are doing a great job. We have to be creative when attacking against their block. They were serving really well and they started tipping a lot.
Maja Ognjenovic, Captain of Serbia: It was tough and we knew it before we started the game. We played so many times against USA but I regret that we didn’t get the breaks in some moments. We were afraid to win. My team did not play their best volleyball. USA were so powerful, but today they had so many easy balls to put in our court, so many block-outs, and we didn’t react to it.
They played a lot with their middle blockers and every time they do that, it’s one against one on defence, so that made it difficult for us to defend. In the fourth set, they put a little bit of pressure on us on service, so we had problem with our reception and we could not organise a play for our middle blockers. When the reception is out of the three-metre line, the only option was to go to (Brankica) Mihajlovic or (Tijana) Boskovic, but they have a tough three-man block waiting for them.
We don’t have the time to be upset about this match because we have to play China in the next match, and that will also be a tough match. I hope that we can prepare more for this match and earn another two wins.
Brankica Mihajlovic, Player of Serbia: They played very well. At this point, they are the strongest team. We should play better, especially from the service line. We need to play better in order to win.
We have a balanced team. We have some young players like Boskovic and we also have experienced players, which have been playing in the national team for a long time. This balance is working very well for us. It’s not the end of the tournament, we lost today but we need to forget it. We just need to be aware of the things that we are doing wrong. You cannot allow easy mistakes against tough opponents, so I hope we can play much better.