Exactly 40 years after the Yugoslav women’s team had become World Champions in Belgrade for the first and only time, Serbia are going for gold again in the same city. And 23 years after their Yugoslav forerunners had made it to a final of the World Championship (lost against Soviet Union) Serbia are in the final of the Women’s World Championship on home ground. The host of the Women’s World Championship defeated their Polish opponents in a one-sided semi-final on Friday (20 December) by 24:18 (14:6), attended by 18.236 spectators in the Kombank Arena – another world record for women’s handball matches after those 16.500 spectators on Wednesday in the quarter-final against Norway. After a Serbian eleven-goal-lead at 17:6 the poles improved, but Polish catch-up chase came too late to turn the match around.
The Serbs will face the winner of the second semifinal Denmark vs. Brazil on Sunday 22 December.
Serbia (since Montenegro split off) and Poland had made it to a semi-final of a World Championship for the first time. But the host stood the pressure that the whole country expected the berth for the final, while the Poles lost the games in attack –mainly because the incredible saves of Serbian goalkeeper Katarina Tomasevic. Best scorers were Andrea Lekic (8 goals for Serbia) and Karolina Szwed Örneborg (4 goals for Poland).
Semi-final 1:
Poland – Serbia 18:24 (6:14)
A Serbian trio imprinted the first half and was the key for a never expected eight goal advance already after 30 minutes: Goalkeeper Katarina Tomasevic saved 12 Polish shots in only 23 minutes, team captain Andrea Lekic (5) and unstoppable line player Dragana Cvijic (4), scored nine of 14 goals for the host. Cvijic had taken a huge confidence by her incredible performance in the quarter-final against Norway, when she netted in eight times from nine attempts.
On the other hand one number explains the weak halftime result for the Poles: They scored six goals from 29 shots in the first 30 minutes, and even missed to score one single goal for ten minutes, as Lekic and Cvijic scored three times each for bringing the Serbs ahead from 5:4 to 11:4. Even a time-out by coach Kim Rasmussen did not stop the Polish downswing.
And Serbia could have even been ahead by a bigger margin, but especially in the opening stages were too hectic and nervous in attack. But then incredible Tomasevic boosted the host by her saves – aside Poland were extremely unlucky by hitting the goal post several times.
And nothing changed in the initial stage of the second half: Tomasevic closed her goal and Poland needed eight minutes to score their first goal after the break. During this period, Serbia had already decided the one-sided encounter by adding three more goals to their tally, leading by 17:6, causing another Rasmussen time-out.
Even as they improved by clearly increasing their shooting efficiency and reduced the gap to 11:19 and 15:21 in minute 53, the Polish catch-up chase came too late to never endanger the World Championship host despite several saves of goalkeeper Malgorzata Gapska– their final dream had come to an unhappy-end, while the Serbs were again dancing on the field.
In contrast to the highly close and unlucky semi-final defeat against Montenegro in the European championship in the same arena one year ago followed by a another defeat against Hungary in the bronze final, now the Serbs have definitely fulfilled their medal dream, which now is even golden.
Statements after the match
Kim Rasmussen, coach Poland: Congratulations to the Danish team, they deserved the victory. We had quite a lot of problems in scoring goals. But we were in a semi-final for the first time, and I am satisfied with the heart the girls showed. We won the second half. It was a completely new experience for us, nevertheless we are disappointed.
Karolina Szwed-Orneborg, player Poland: The Serbian fans were really fantastic. It was a great experience for us, to play in this arena. I don´t want to talk so much about what had happened, because now I want to focus on the next match to win a medal.
Karolina Kudlacz (Poland): Unfortunately we didn’t find our best performance today. We acted not so bad in offence, but Katarina Tomasevic in the Serbian goal was today the tower in the battle. It was the eighth match for both teams and I think the matches were decided more and more in the head than in the bodies. For sure we are sad now but we will come back on Sunday to pick up our Bronze medal in the last match. In summary Poland played a good tournament, now we want a medal.
Katarzyna Koniuszaniec (Poland): The Serbian victory was well deserved. I have to congratulate the host. It was a fantastic atmosphere. But Serbia surprised our team with an extreme aggressive defence and Tomasevic in the goal was so strong. We made too many individual mistakes and so the match was too early decided. We didn't find back into the game.
Sasa Boskovic, coach Serbia: Hello, Serbia. You just won a medal tonight. I feel for the Polish team, because I know what it means to lose a semifinal. Tonight we had a new world record attendance. I hope we will have one more on Sunday, when the hall will be completely full.
Sanja Damnjanovic, player Serbia: I knew that we will make it to the end of this tournament. The Polish team had no solutions against our strong defense. After the first 30 minutes we made a deal in the locker room: We wanted to start the second half as if the result was 0:0. Now we are in the final. Brazil or Denmark? It´s all the same for us. We have enough confidence to beat both of them.
Jovana Risovic, player Serbia: We did everything correct from the start. We corrected the mistake from last year, when we lost the semi-final. It is completely phenomenal that we are heading for the final. By the way: We have the best goalkeeper of the world, Katarina Tomasevic.
Katarina Krpez, player Serbia: We are still a bit overwhelmed with what we have achieved, none of us can quite believe yet that we are in the World Championship final. It’s a fantastic feeling and it came after a very mature performance. We have so much more self-confidence than in last year’s European Championship because we have grown as a team. The atmosphere was fantastic as our home crowd carried us. I hope we will play Brazil in the final so we can avenge the preliminary group stage defeat we suffered against them.
Dragana Cvijic, player Serbia: I hope everyone enjoyed this semi-final as much as we did. To be honest a tougher match but our great start to the match was crucial. Katarina Tomasevic was majestic in goal and after a tough quarter-final win against Norway, we were able to save some energy in this game for grand final. We now have to prepare well mentally and physically for the final showdown. We are one step away from glory.
Katarina Tomasevic, player Serbia: I want to congratulate my team mates for a fantastic performance and I am now really hopeful that we will win the gold medal. It makes no difference to me who we play in the final because both Brazil and Denmark are excellent teams. We made a torrid start with rock-solid defence and that was the key. The crowd played a huge part in this victory, they put the wind in our sails and had the effect of an extra player on the court.