Drazen Luburic stepped up when it mattered most for Serbia as it took down China, 25-18, 25-19, 29-27, to stay in contention in the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship on Tuesday night at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
Luburic took matters into his own hands with 17 points off 15 kills, one block, and an ace to bounce back from Czechia’s upset two days ago.
“It was our last chance basically to get our first win and to be in the spot, to even get a chance to go out of the group. So, we still have a lot of work to do against Brazil and we will look for our chances against them since it's our last game and of course it depends on a lot of things. It depends on the match between Czech Republic and China as well,” said Luburic ahead of Thursday’s match against Brazil at 10 a.m.
After dominating the first two sets, China saved three match points in the third set and took the advantage, 27-26, before Aleksandar Nedeljkovic’s equalizer.
Pavle Peric delivered the last two points and finished with 11, while Nedeljkovic also scored 11. Aleksandar Stefanovic added eight.
“Well we were just basically waiting for this moment to happen. I would say that team China is great. They also showed a great performance against Brazil in the first round so we know they are a tough opponent. But we also know our qualities and how much effort we put in this summer so we were just waiting for results to come out,” said Luburic.
China relied on outside hitter Bin Wang, who had 16 points, but bombed out of contention with a 0-2 record in Pool H before facing Czechia on Thursday at 9 p.m.
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