Egypt’s volleyball team were dealt their third successive defeat in the 2019 Volleyball World Cup in Japan on Sunday, losing to Russia 3-1.
The Russians dominated the game early, winning the first set 25-19, before seeing the Egyptians restore the balance in the second set 25-21.
But Russia went on to take the third and fourth sets with scores of 25-19 and 25-21.
Egypt’s skipper Ahmed Salah continued his superb performance, scoring nine points during the game.
The Pharaohs had won their first two matches, against Australia and Iran, before losing their third game to Brazil on Friday and their fourth to Canada on Saturday.
After the loss to Russia, Egypt dropped one position to fifth place on seven points.
"I want to congratulate the Russian team and my friend Tuomas [Sammelvuo, Russia coach]. They played a great game. I think they were fresher today than we were, you could see that our boys were a little bit tired. But still they did not give up fighting. I’m very proud of how they stayed in the court and stayed in the game," Egypt coach Gido Vermeulen said after the match.
"We have [played] five big teams here and we can compete with them on all levels. Today Russia was too strong for us at the net, but especially on the float serve they killed us. We tried to do something back in the same way, tactically, but the Russians have too many options in attack and great setters, so in the end we could not manage to control the game, only for one set.
"But I’m proud of how my players are representing Egypt here, because they do that in a great way, and they play good volleyball. That’s good for the next round, that we know that we can play good volleyball. We need to rest now and prepare [for] the next games."
Egypt will face Italy in their next game on Wednesday, at 4am Cairo local time (GMT+2).
"In the other pool there are some teams we want to beat, so we will try to add some more wins for our team and get confidence for our tournament in January. That’s the most important [thing] for our team, to build our rhythm to have a really good level in January next year for the Olympic qualification," the Egypt coach concluded.
The 2019 edition of the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup features 12 national teams from the five continental confederations and is taking place in Nagano, Fukuoka and Hiroshima from 1 to 15 October.
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