On Wednesday, January 29th local time, the sixth group match of the UEFA Champions League took place, with Yuki Ishikawa's Perugia playing against Halkbank Ankara (Turkey) and losing 2-3 (26-28, 25-14, 25-15, 18-25, 12-15).
In the first set, Halkbank struggled with Perugia's serve and blocks, winning a close match 26-28.
From there, in the second and third sets, Perugia scored one after another with a high attack success rate, mainly from OH Ishikawa and OP Ventala, and showed an overwhelming performance that seemed to show their true strength, winning two sets with ease, 25-14, 25-15, and putting them in checkmate.
It seemed like Perugia would continue this momentum in the fourth set, but Halkbank led 0-3 in the early stages. However, in the middle stages, Perugia turned the game around and took the lead 12-9 with OH Semeniuk's spikes. However, after that, at 14-13, OH Ishikawa (probably cramped) was replaced by OH Cianciotta.
From there, Perugia's attacks became monotonous and blocks from OH Koi made it 17-20, but then Perugia made multiple mistakes from OH Koi's serve, and finally Hulkbank made a run with a service ace to make it 18-25 and take the game to a full set.
OH Ishikawa returned to the court at the start of the fifth set, but OH Semeniuk made a series of attacking mistakes, giving Halkbank a lead of 8-11. From there, OH Ishikawa's spike brought Perugia within one point at 10-11, but they were unable to score the last point, and on the contrary, they made more mistakes, giving Halkbank the win at 12-15, and Perugia lost 2-3.
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The team, which had won 22 games in a row from the start of last year until January 6th of this year, has now suffered three straight losses since January 20th.
In this match, OH Ishikawa showed a very high offensive performance with 13 points, the second highest on the team, with an attack efficiency rate of 46%, including the 5th set in which he returned. Therefore, his withdrawal in the 4th set was very regrettable. If it hadn't been for that, there is a very high possibility that Perugia would have won 3-1.
It was only three days after the Coppa Italia semi-final, where they played in full sets against Verona, and the fatigue had not yet fully subsided. Not only Ishikawa, but other players also seemed to lack energy, especially after the fourth set, probably due to fatigue.
In fact, Perugia's weapon, the serve, did not get a single ace after the fourth set. Even though Halkbank had a visible landmine called OH Real, Perugia struggled to attack with the serve, just like in the previous match against Verona.
Of course, the return of OH Plotnicki is important for Perugia's revival, but they also need to regain the number of service aces, which are the team's weapons. Perugia is the only team in the Superlegga to have more than two service aces per set so far, and they are a strong serve team. However, they have not been able to score aces, especially in the last two games.
I hope they will recover as much as possible and attack with their serves in tonight's match against Taranto to grab a long-awaited victory. If they are playing against Taranto, it would be ideal to conserve OH Ishikawa and allow him to recover physically, and then challenge with the tough OH Semeniuk and OH Cianciotta to win, but what kind of starting lineup will coach Lorenz Leti use?
Photo: cev.eu
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