After a grueling, prolonged opening set, world no. 16 Bulgaria pulled off an upset over world no. 8 Germany, 40-38, 25-22, 25-20, within the 2025 FIVB Males’s World Championship on Saturday on the Mall of Asia Enviornment.
The primary set alone lasted 43 minutes, as each groups slugged it out in a back-and-forth battle for the early benefit.
Germany reached set level first at 24-23 following an assault by György Grozer, however Aleksandar Nikolov responded to tie the rating and prolong the set.
What adopted was a good trade, with each squads refusing to let up till the rating reached 38-all.
Germany then challenged for a block contact, however the evaluate was deemed unsuccessful, giving Bulgaria the sting. Nikolov finally sealed the set with an assault, because the Germans had a fault on set level.
Nikolov scored 15 of his game-high 28 factors in that first set alone, anchored by 24 whole assaults.
Driving the momentum, Bulgaria went on to dominate the following two units to finish the sweep.
“I don’t suppose it might’ve been any higher. A 3-0 win in opposition to a contender popping out of the group is nice. We’re tremendous glad, however we’ve completed nothing but,” stated Nikolov in a post-match interview, including that they now want to arrange for his or her subsequent sport in opposition to Slovenia.
Grozer paced Germany with 13 factors within the loss.
Earlier within the day, world no. 24 Portugal shocked world no. 11 Cuba, 20-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-19.
—JKC, GMA Built-in Information