Tijuana, Mexico, September 13, 2015 - Russian coach Mikhail Nikolaev called up his starters and substitutes, to get on the court as they prepared for the second round of the tournament.
“Today the result was not important. I gave the chance to all players. We were stronger in all elements and confidently won. Of course we are ready for next round. First game will be very important against any team”, he said after winning against The United States.
Nikolaev mentioned that the strong teams on the next round are China or Brazil.
“It may be China, it may be Brazil, we are ready for that game, for any situation,” He remarked.
Meanwhile, Pavel Pankov, captain of Russia said that they had no troubles to go on and close the first phase. “Today I think we had no problema. It was a good experience for us and for the guys who didn’t have a lot of practice before,” Pankov expressed. “We are waiting for the next round, ready to keep winning, I am sure we will do that.”
John Hatch stated that his team faced a high caliber rival. “Russia is a very good team, they played very well. We have learned a lot from this World Championship as an experience,” Hatch said.
“Definitively we are in a competition that is in a higher level, facing very good teams and we are here to keep playing as a team. We hope to finally get a win in the second part of the tournament (in classification round for places 9 to 16), t have a better performance than yesterday and if we keep trying we can get some success down the road.”
For coach Daniel Friend, Russians are just the best team of the competition as they have shown. “Russia is the best team of all 16 teams. We battled, and we found some good tcomposure sometimes, but They are much more physical than we are right now, and they a very good team,” Friend established.
“I think our guys are taking a great experience so far and every opportunity to be on the court is an opportunity to become a better play and I’m proud to be here,” he concluded.