The Bulgarian national team achieved an extremely important 3:1 (22:25, 25:14, 25:20, 25:20) victory over China in their second match of the third week of the Nations League in Chicago. After losing the first set, Gianlorenzo Blengini's players showed character and dominated until the end of the match, recording their sixth success in the tournament. Coach Blengini made one change to the starting lineup compared to the first match against Poland. Denislav Bardarov started in place of Martin Atanasov.
Bulgaria started hesitantly, allowing China to take an early lead in the first set. The hosts of the final tournament maintained their advantage throughout the set and closed it at 25:22.
The second set was completely different. Alex Nikolov scored four consecutive aces early on, giving the 'Lions' a 6:1 lead. The Bulgarians completely controlled the events on the court, extended their lead with more strong serves from Alex Grozdanov and Iliya Petkov, and without any problems equalized after a convincing 25:14.
In the third set, Bulgaria started stronger again, but the Chinese managed to turn the score to 9:7. Our players reacted excellently, turning the tide of the set with a serving run by Alex Nikolov, several strong blocks, and aces from Simeon Nikolov and Zhasmin Velichkov. After 19:15, the Bulgarians no longer relinquished the initiative and took a 2:1 lead after 25:20.
The fourth set was the most contested at the beginning. China took a 7:5 lead, but Bulgaria quickly equalized, and then, with an excellent series of blocks and attacks through Denislav Bardarov, Preslav Petkov, and Alex Nikolov, built up a 16:12 advantage. Until the end, the 'Lions' completely controlled the game and ended the dispute after 25:20.
Nikolov was the top scorer for Bulgaria with 28 points (including 64% attack efficiency, 4 aces, and 1 block). Asparuhov and Bardarov added 15 points each. Setter Simeon Nikolov contributed 7 points. For China, Wen scored the most with 13 points, and Li with 12 points.
Statistics also showed the superiority of the Bulgarian team. Bulgaria finished with 58 attack points against 43 for China, 9 successful blocks against 6, 11 aces (with 18 serving errors) against 4, and 48:43 saved balls in defense. In reception, there was also an advantage 78:73. The only indicator where the Chinese gained an advantage was points after opponent's errors 26 against 19.
With this victory, Bulgaria gained a modest 0.6 points for the world ranking, now having 270 points and maintaining its 10th place. China is 34th.
Even more importantly, the sixth victory moved the 'Lions' to 8th place in the Nations League provisional standings with a record of 6 wins, 4 losses, and 17 points, displacing Brazil and returning to the final eight zone.
Bulgaria's next challenge is against the host team, USA. The match is on July 19th at 04:00 AM Bulgarian time.
photo:volleyballworld.com
