On Sunday, October 23rd local time, the fourth round of the Italian men's volleyball league Serie A match between Padova and Perugia took place, with Perugia, who finished first in the regular season last year, defeating Padova at home 3-1 (21-25, 25-12, 25-19, 25-18).
Takahashi Ai also started the game and scored the team's highest number of points with 16, but was unable to lead her team to victory this time.
Starting lineup for the first set
Padua
OH: Takahashi (Japan), De Smet (Belgium)
MB: Volpato (Italy), Crosato (Italy)
OP: Petkovic (Serbia)
S: Saitta (Italy)
L: Zenger (Germany)
Perugia
OH: Semeniuk (Poland), Plotnicki (Ukraine)
MB: Sole (Argentina/Italy), Flavio (Brazil)
OP: Lihilicki (Luxembourg/Italy)
S: Gianelli (Italy)
L: Piccinelli (Italy)
The stats for this match areHere
Match Report
In the first set, Padova's serve worked well in the early stages and they got a break chance, and Takahashi scored a sharp spike to give them a good start with a 5-2 lead.
Perugia then caught up to 9-9 with a spike from Lihiricki, but Padova again widened the gap to 12-9 with consecutive breaks, including an ace, from Petkovic's serve.
Perugia scored goals mainly from Sole and Flavio in the middle of the field, while Padua's three players on the wing scored steadily, preventing their opponents from following suit.
Their blocking and digging also worked well, as they won long rallies and extended their lead to 17-13.
Padua's momentum continued towards the end of the set.
Takahashi in particular thrilled the crowd with his sharp pipe attacks and his successful hits on a difficult high set twice despite his opponent having three blocks.
Takahashi's spike exploded at the end, and Padua took the first set 25-21.
Takahashi put in an impressive performance in this set alone, scoring nine points and posting an impressive attack success rate of 821 TP3T.
However, the second set was dominated by Perugia, as if the first set had never happened.
Starting with this set, Perugia replaced their libero with veteran Coraci (Italy), a silver medalist at the Rio Olympics, from Piccinelli, who had a poor serve reception success rate of 141 TP3T.
This not only stabilized Perugia's serve reception, but also enabled them to attack and pressure Padua with their serves.
Furthermore, Padova had difficulty scoring with spikes, with Petkovic getting caught in the opponent's block, and the score gap quickly widened to 10-3 early on.
In this set, Takahashi was avoided by his opponent when receiving serves, and he had almost no opportunities to spike, so he was unable to get involved in the play.
Padua replaced their setter with Zoppellari (Italy) and OH De Smet with Asparuhov (Bulgaria), but they were unable to improve the situation.
On the other hand, Lihilicki and Plotnicki made sure to score, widening the gap, and finally, with a service ace from Semeniuk, Perugia took the set back by a large margin of 25-12.
Perugia continued to lead in the third set.
However, unlike the second set, Padua began to get side outs with their own spikes rather than due to the opponent's serve errors, and their main scorer Petkovic also showed signs of recovery.
With Perugia leading by six points at 13-7, Padua again sent Asparuhov onto the court to replace De Smet, and his serve was on fire, winning five consecutive points, including an ace, to put Perugia within 14-13.
However, Padua made some spiking mistakes and was unable to tie the score.
On the other hand, Perugia extended their lead to 22-16 with three consecutive service aces from Semeniuk, making Padua's comeback hopeless.
Towards the end of the game, Padua's relief server Guardini got an ace to get some revenge, but it was too late, and in the end MB Sole hit a quick shot to give Perugia the set, 25-19.
The fourth set also saw no change in momentum from the beginning, with Perugia leading 3-0 at the start.
After that, Takahashi and Crosart were caught in the opponent's block, widening the gap to 7-3.
However, shortly afterwards Takahashi scored a service ace, and with Asparuhov's spike and some skillful passing from Takahashi, Perugia closed the gap to just one point at 12-11.
However, Perugia extended their lead to 21-16 with service aces from Lihiricki and Semeniuk, going into the final minutes.
Padua also got an ace from Petkovic to make it 21-18, but then Perugia scored four consecutive points off Flavio's serve.
Perugia converted a match point with a Plotnicki spike and took the set 25-18 to beat Padua 3-1.
The MVP was selected as MB Sole of Perugia, who scored 12 points and recorded an impressive attacking efficiency rate of 911 TP3T.
On this day, Takahashi scored 16 points (15 attacks, 1 serve), with an attack success rate of 651 TP3T and a serve reception success rate of 581 TP3T - great individual numbers, but unfortunately they did not lead to the team's victory.
With this, Padua is now in 10th place with a record of 2 wins and 2 losses.
Next week, they will play away against Taranto on Sunday 30 October at 18:00 local time.
My thoughts on the matter
I watched this match live.
Although the result was disappointing, it was a very exciting game!
The Takahashi Festival in the first set was so moving and amazing that I was left dumbfounded, and leaving the second set aside, the third and fourth sets were so close that it looked like a comeback was possible, so I was able to enjoy the match until the end.
Furthermore, since the opponent in this match was Perugia, a team with many popular players, the venue was almost full to capacity, and the energy of the venue further livened up the match.
In particular, when Takahashi scored a goal, the whole stadium erupted in excitement!
I think everyone in Padua already loves Takahashi (laughs).
Also, when Takahashi scored a goal, the Padua supporters cheered him on in Japanese, saying things like "Thank you!" and "Go for it!", and I was really touched by that support.
Takahashi is always smiling off the court, but on the court he looks as if he is on edge, in the zone, and his extraordinary level of concentration is palpable.
When you see such a huge gap, it's obvious you'll fall in love (lol).
On top of that, he is well-trusted by his team, and even difficult tosses are entrusted to him, and he scores.
His serve reception and digs are also excellent, but his second toss accuracy is also amazing. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think his spike success rate when he tosses the ball is quite high.
Padua's challenge is to improve the stability of Takahashi's diagonal outside. In particular, Takahashi's serves are easily avoided by opponents, so it's important to see how well he can withstand serve reception.
I don't know whether it will be De Smet, Asparuhov, or even Gardini, but if this team can get together, Padua should become significantly stronger!
Do your best! For now, we want to get 3 points next time!!
And Perugia was also strong.
Although they lost the first set, from the second set onwards, they played impressive volleyball and never allowed Padua to take the lead.
Moreover, this match was won by resting Leon (Poland), the team's star player and said to be one of the best attackers in the world.
However, the players who replace them are also ace-level starters on the national team, so the team's strength doesn't seem to change much.
In particular, in today's match, I was glad to be able to see Plotnicki's serve, who is my personal favorite, up close and personal many times.
No, it was really cool.
I was a little nervous (lol).
Perugia was the only team to have won all of its matches after the fourth week and was in first place.
It will be interesting to see how long they can extend this winning streak, and which team will break it.
Overall, it was a truly satisfying experience watching the event in person.
We hope you will all experience this excitement for yourself!
Takahashi is waiting too!!!
All Italian league matches are broadcast live and archived on Volleyball World TV! If you haven't done so yet, check out the link below to find out how to watch and cheer on the players together!
Photo: Lega Pallavolo Serie A
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