Valdir Sequeira of Portugal slammed down six aces against Finland
Lausanne, Switzerland, June 16, 2017 –
Valdir Sequeira was in thumping form for
Portugal as they overcame
Finland 3-1 (20-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-22) in Cairo on Friday.
Sequeira was his team’s top scorer with 19 points but six of those came from the service line.
Sequeira’s serving performance was matched by
France’s
Thibault Rossard in their five-set match against
Italy. Rossard also totalled 19 points, adding two blocks and 11 kills to his six aces.
Stephen Boyer equalled Rossard’s points total but the pair couldn’t do enough to stop Italy winning 3-2.
The day’s top scoring performance came in the match between
Australia and
Japan.
Paul Carroll didn’t trouble himself with too many blocks and serves (he scored in neither category), but was full-on attacking the net, picking up 27 spiking points.
Luke Smith supported him with 22 points, while Japan were led by
Haku Ri and
Issei Otake with 16 apiece.
Also in Group 2,
China’s
Chuan Jiang managed to get four of his team’s 15 blocking points against
Turkey and he added three aces for good measure. Turkey could only manage five blocks in total against China.
In the same Group, the
Czech Republic and the
Netherlands kept their opponents under pressure, limiting their top scorers to just six points.
The Dutch had a similarly easy time against
Korea with
Wouter Ter Maat topping the scorers with 16 points. Teammate
Thomas Koelewijn contributed four blocks among his eight points, while Korea’s top guns were
Joo-Hyeong Park and
Kang-Won Lee, both with six points. The Netherlands scored 14 blocking points to Korea’s one and had nine aces; Korea had none.
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3