18-Nov, start time: 15:00, end time: 16:36 - Attendance: 2,630

SCG	3	28	25	25	25	-	103
EGY	1	30	18	21	12	-	81

Match Description:

Egyptian scare for Olympic champs
Egypt, under former Serbia and Montenegro coach Veselin Vukovic, gave the Sydney Olympic champions a reminder of how tough the 2003 World Cup is before losing a fascinating four-set encounter in the second match on day three in the Yoyogi Stadium, Tokyo on Tuesday.

It was Serbia and Montenegro's third win from three matches but not without a scare.

The favourites, who were again missing the unwell Vladimir Grbic, got off to a 5-0 lead before Egypt tied the match up at 7-7. An inspirational block from Mohamed Shehata and some pin point spiking from captain Elsafy Awad, saw Egypt take the lead at 18-17 and hold it until a Novica Bjelica block put Serbia and Montenegro ahead 25-24. Everyone expected the eventual kill to come but Egypt held on and the despair on Andrija Geric's face was for all to see. An excellent Elsafy Awad serve gave Egypt the lead at 29-28 before they got the break they deserved when Mohamed Awad's dig from Ivan Mijlkovic's spike fell into empty enemy territory much to the delight of the crowd.

This looked a minor set back for Serbia and Montenegro as they soon opened an 8-4 lead in the second set and it wasn't long before Mijlkovic got into his stride on attack and they went further ahead 19-12 before the sealing the set 25-18.

But Egypt weren't finished as they pushed their more fancied opponents again taking an 8-6 lead early in the third. But at 14-11 Serbia and Montenegro kicked into gear as Miljkovic tied up the game at 16-16 before going on to take the set 25-21.

Serbia and Montenegro's momentum continued as they wrapped up the final set with ease.

Comments:

TRAVICA, Ljubomir (SCG Head Coach)
We were under pressure after we lost against U.S. yesterday. So I expected this game would be difficult one. Egypt played very well, and their motivation was very high. I felt it's important to keep fighting spirit.

BOSKAN, Slobodan (SCG Player)
We didn't play well in the first set. The main reason of losing first set is that we made easy mistakes. We shouldn't have made these easy mistakes at this level of competition. But after all, we played well in the last three sets, especially in defense.

VUKOVIC, Veselin (EGY Head Coach)
Players of our team did their best. We were able to set our motivations very high to get the first set. Taking the first set against SCG would be a big motivation for the next match. We are young team. I think that experience of international games will be good for us to get stronger.

AWAD, Hamdy Elsafy (EGY Captain)
We played very good game today. We got one set from SCG. If we play as we played today, we can play good games.

Official Result:

Match statistics (P-2) - PDF