Big disappointment was brought by sixth playing day of U18 European Championship Women to ranks of our NT. They lost both possibilities to qualify for quarter finals, so our basketball "hopes" wont fight for medals in Romanian metropolis and they shall finish on the possible highest ninth place.

First advancement match-ball was taken from them by Italians who as absolute winner of basic GROUP D were scared by elimination in Second round and had to fight their way to quarter finals in the last minutes. If they had lost the duel against Netherlands, our girl would have qualified for quarter final at that moment, but "squadra azzura" after bad first half (they lost 21:35) turned the course of the game by 180 degrees and triumphed 64:56.

Slovak national team had to won (within these circumstances) game against Serbia to gain quarter finals certainty, but this dream started to disappear in the second quarter. We lost its beginning 0:10 and before the half break was the score 29:36. In the first minutes of the third quarter we managed to lower the score difference (37:39), but in the next six minutes Serbian NT recorded 2:11 score.

Serbia - SLOVAKIA 71:56 (18:15, 18:14, 15:12, 20:15)

Serbia: Stanačev 24, Mandič 11, Kovačevič 10, Topuzovič 8, Stankovič 3 (Vidakovič 9, Boskovič 0). Coach: Z. Kovačič

SLOVAKIA: Hruščáková 18 (10 rebounds), Bálintová 16, Raková 9, Páleníková 7, Slamová 3 (Krivosudská 2, Desiatniková 1, Dudášová, Hadačová and Moravčíková 0). Coach: M. Matyáš

Marián Matyáš (coach of Slovak NT):

"The fate of this duel was decided by the fact that my players weren’t able to overcome high-guality opponent’s defense in crucial moments and to defend them in scoring positions. Decisive moment came in the third quarter, when we managed to draw level with Serbians, but we had significant problem with too many fouls so we had to change some players. In this stages of the game Žofia Hruščáková hit her thigh and our opponent used her temporal lack of concentration to build their advantage."

Our fading quarter finals hope definitely died after first half of the "Adriatic derby" Slovenia-Croatia. Half time result 24:38 showed that Slovenians weren’t able to reach victory from 7 to 22 points (even come near needed result). Final result 77:40 from the viewpoint of Croats definitively confirmed it.

Final scoreboard of Second Round - GROUP

F:

1. Italy 3/2 303:305 8 – quarter final

2. Netherlands3/2 289:277 8 - quarter final

3. Serbia 3/2 336:303 8 - quarter final

4. Croatia 3/2 331:282 8 - quarter final

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5. SLOVAKIA 2/3 294:315 7

6. Slovenia 1/4 264:335 6

Opening game in the fights for final 9.-12. place will our girls start at 5 pm. (3rd August, Friday) against Greece. In case of success we will meet team from duel Sweden-Slovenia on Saturday (5 pm.). We would play against the worse from this duel the same day, but at 6.15 pm. if we had lost the game with Greece.

Schedule of the quarter final games (Friday, 3rd August 2012):

12.30 pm. CET: France - Croatia

2.45 pm. CET: Italy - Russia

5 pm. CET: Spain – Serbia

7.15 pm. CET: Holland – Turkey