Sweden puts up surprisingly tough fight against mighty Italy at Volleyball Europeans

The Women's European Volleyball Championship bid farewell to host city Brno on Wednesday, as Sweden was eliminated after a tightly contested quarterfinal against Italy, last year's Olympic and world champions. Italy won 3-1, with set scores of 25:21, 24:26, 21:25 and 23:25.

The two teams had already met in the group stage in Gothenburg, where Italy, this summer's runner-up in the European League, won comfortably 3-0. The quarterfinal told a different story from the start, as Sweden stunned Italy in the opening set, rallying from 6:11 down to close it out with a strong late run.

In the second set, Sweden won three straight rallies to start and later led 23:21, but could not convert the advantage into a two-set lead. In the third set, the Scandinavians clawed back from 16:19 to tie it at 21:21, only for Italy to take the final points. A similar pattern repeated in the fourth set, where Sweden led 22:20 after trailing 17:20, before Italy closed the match with a 5:1 run.

Sweden's top scorer was opposite hitter Isabelle Haak with 42 points, including three aces. For Italy, Paola Ogechi Egonu added 27 points and Ekaterina Antropova contributed 22.

Serbia advances comfortably

In the other quarterfinal, Serbia confirmed its favorite status by beating Greece 3-0 (25:14, 25:20, 25:17). The two sides' earlier group-stage meeting had been far closer, with Serbia needing five sets to win. Tijana Boskovic led Serbia with 17 points, while Aleksandra Uzelac added 15, each also serving two aces.