The 18th edition of the FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship got underway in San Juan on Wednesday with the first eight matches of the pool stage of the competition. In the most interesting of them, and the only one to go to five, FIVB U19 World Ranking leaders Bulgaria celebrated victory over fellow Europeans from Slovenia in Pool B, with three of the sets decided by the narrowest of margins.

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The Bulgarians completely outserved (15 aces against three) and outblocked (13 stuffs against six) the opponents, and also did better in attack (56 kills against 49), but committed way more unforced errors (43 to 30) to invite the Slovenians to a five-set battle, before emerging with a win in this rollercoaster match.

Bulgaria dominated the first set to win it convincingly, but Slovenia struck back, squeezing out two-point wins in the next two. The southerners were the first reach set point in the third at 24-22, but the boys from Central Europe scored four points in a row to take the lead in the match. In the fourth, Slovenia had a 24-22 advantage before the Bulgarians denied three opponent match points to take the set even deeper into overtime on an ace by Kristiyan Andreev. The tie-breaker was quite one-sided and coach Miroslav Zhivkov’s squad cruised to victory with Aleksandar Kandev’s block-out shot producing the match winner.

Kandev was the best scorer of the game with 23 points. His tally included as many as six aces and four kill blocks. Kristian Titriyski added another 21 points for Bulgaria, while setter and captain Simeon Nikolov impressed with five aces, four kill blocks and seven points in attack to collect an amazing tally of 16 points, one more than Slovenia’s most productive players Luka Marovt and Miha Okorn, who finished with 15 points apiece.

In the other Pool B match of the first day, France mastered an emphatic shutout of India, with Adrien Roure acing six times to top the scorers’ chart of the match on a total of 10 points.

Nella Pool A, l'Egitto ha perseverato in due set molto lunghi per festeggiare la vittoria per 3-1 (25-16, 18-25, 30-28, 28-26) sulla Serbia, con Shrief Helawy in testa con 22 punti, mentre i padroni di casa, l'Argentina, hanno fatto un 3-0 (25-14, 25-16, 25-13) nel match d'apertura contro la Costa Rica, con un match high da 15 punti di Inaki Ramos.

Nella Pool C, l'Iran ha sconfitto la Corea in set diretti, 3-0 (25-20, 25-20, 25-23). Mohammadreza Alejalil ha raggiunto la vetta della classifica dei marcatori con 16 punti, compresi quattro dei 17 blocchi di uccisioni dell'Iran nel match. Una vittoria per forfait per 3-0 (25-0, 25-0, 25-0) è stata assegnata a Porto Rico nella partita contro la Nigeria.

Due sconfitte dirette hanno caratterizzato la prima giornata della Pool D. Il Brasile ha ottenuto una vittoria per 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, 25-23) sul Messico, nonostante un match high da 21 punti della battitrice esterna messicana Ines Lares, mentre Alessandro Bristot è andato a segno 16 volte per guidare l'Italia in una sconfitta per 3-0 (25-19, 25-16, 25-19) contro il Cile.

L'azione delle piscine continuerà giovedì, con i quattro partecipanti rimanenti - Stati Uniti nella Piscina A, Giappone nella Piscina B, Colombia nella Piscina C e Belgio nella Piscina D - che si uniranno alla corsa per gli onori mondiali.

2023 FIVB Volleyball Boys' U19 World Championship: full schedule and results

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