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Israel celebrated their first win in women’s EuroVolley 2021 qualification Pool E on Saturday in Belfort, after mastering a convincing 3-0 (25-19, 25-16, 25-16) shutout of Denmark.

Denmark stormed the match on a 3-0 run, but Israel quickly recovered to gain complete control in the second half of the first set. Shirel Ganah hammered the overpass to close it off at 25-19. Israel kept the upper hand for most of the second set and in the end they made an impressive six-point home run, crowned by Inbal Peleg’s ace for 25-16. Massively improving their spiking efforts, the Israelis came back from an early four-point deficit (0-4, 1-5) in the third set to dominate through the end of the match. Polina Malik led her teammates to an emphatic 25-16 third-set win with eight points in the set towards the match high of 18.

Helena Elbaek, captain of Denmark: "Israel played very well. We never really reached our level. We struggled a lot in defence and they used that against us. They had good serves and attacks. So, we have a lot to work on before our next game, but I still think we fought well the whole time."

Luca Rossini, assistant coach of Israel: "This is a young team and yesterday we suffered a little bit of pressure because of the importance of the tournament. Today we were a little bit more relaxed, we would play our game and it was a good game. Tomorrow it’s not going to be easy, especially after France’s loss. They need to win, so they are going to give their all on the court, but we are going to have the enthusiasm from today’s win on our side, so we are going to try."