Turkey captain Eda Erdem Dundar celebrates a point against Canada
Sapporo, Japan, September 29, 2018 – Seyma Ercan top-scored as Turkey swept past Canada 3-0 (25-18, 25-13, 25-15) on the first day of the FIVB Women’s World Championship at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center on Saturday. Coach Giovanni Guidetti was happy with his team.
Turkey coach Giovanni Guidetti: I’m pretty satisfied with the way we played today. I have a lot of respect for Team Canada. We’ve played them many times and they are very strong physically and have a very good coach. So we were well prepared for them and it made a big difference because we didn’t let them play their volleyball. From the second set, we were stable in our block and defence, and our sideout was pretty good. These three points are very important. I’m very happy about how our team approached this World Championship because it was very good in terms of focus and attitude.
(Re. targeting reception of Canada’s No. 9): Of course, we have a plan before a match and the reception target is one of the most important things to plan and No. 9 was our target. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is to serve strongly against No. 9 and the players did that very well.
Turkey captain Eda Erdem Dundar: I can say we started really well from the first set. In the second set and third set, we served very well. Both teams know each other well and we actually expected better volleyball about the block but we won 3-0 so it’s important for us; it gives us positive energy for our upcoming games and I hope we keep going this way.
Canada coach Marcello Abbondanza: For sure today I am upset not with the result but with the performance we showed because we entered the court very nervous. It's the first time to play here for many of our players and many don't play in professional championships or at a high level so it's very difficult to play Turkey because Turkey played a good match. I think my regret is our behaviour on the court when we went down and we don't find a reaction in a technical way. I hope we can get a good reaction from this to step forward for the next game. I hope tomorrow we will show a different performance.
(Re. reception errors): It's an incredibly big problem but Turkey served very well of course. We are not the best but they had a good day in service. But it's not only about reception. In the first set especially we made so many mistakes so it was hard to stay in the match. But we'll see what will happen tomorrow.
Canada captain Kyla Richey: I think we'll be really disappointed with that the game. We didn't come out as we prepared. I think nerves got the best of us today. I think now moving forward we just have to individually figure out a different way to come back against Italy tomorrow.