Baltic Volleyball League: Tartu's Bigbank beats Latvia's Ezerzeme, Pärnu wins in Tallinn

The new season of the Baltic Volleyball League, a men's club competition, began over the weekend. On Sunday in Tartu, Estonia's Bigbank, regarded as one of the season's favourites, beat Latvia's Ezerzeme 3-0. The previous evening in Tallinn, in the central match of the first round, Selver/TalTech lost to Pärnu Volleyball Club.

League line-up

Nine clubs from three countries are taking part this season. Estonia is represented by five teams: Tallinn's Selver/TalTech and Audentes, Pärnu Volleyball Club, Tartu's Bigbank and Barrus from Võru. Three more teams come from Latvia and one from Lithuania.

Pärnu's win in Tallinn

Pärnu are the reigning champions, having won the trophy last season after a ten-year gap. They now hope to repeat that success, and showed their ambition in the first round of the regular championship by winning 3-1 away against Selver/TalTech. The visitors lost the first set 23-25 but took the next three 25-20, 25-23 and 25-21. Pärnu's Toms Svans was the top scorer in the match, contributing 20 points to his team.

Pärnu's next match is at home on 21 October against Latvia's Ekabpils.

Tournament format

In the first stage, all nine participants will play each other once at home and once away. The winner of this double round-robin goes straight into the semi-finals, while the teams placed second to seventh continue the fight for the title in the quarter-finals.