Yahoo Sports Canadian men drop round of 16 match to Ukraine at sitting volleyball worlds
The Canadian men's sitting volleyball team fell to Ukraine in four sets in their round of 16 match at the 2022 World ParaVolley Championships in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The No. 7-ranked Ukraine will move on to the quarter-finals to play No. 4 Brazil, a team Canada lost to in three sets on Sunday. No. 13-ranked Canada will play for places 9-16 beginning on Tuesday against Rwanda.
The Ukrainians opened the match with a 25-21 win in the first set, then trading two-point victories with Canada (25-23, 23-25, 26-24) to claim the 3-1 tightly contested victory.
"We showed today that we deserve to be a top-eight team," said Canadian head coach Jeff Smith to Volleyball Canada. "We executed a precise game plan against the seventh-place team in the world. Our goal was to showcase our talent and today's match did just that.
"Despite coming out with the 3-1 loss, our drive for success kept us in each match. We came here wanting to be top 10 and plan on doing so."
Smith credited Bryce Foster and José Rebelo's serving skills in the clutch for Canada's competitive play.
In addition to losing to Brazil in pool play, Canada defeated Poland and lost to Germany earlier in the tournament to finish their round robin with a 1-2 record.
The No. 6-ranked Canadian women's team finished second in its pool with a 2-1 record and will next play Hungary on Tuesday with a quarter-final spot on the line.
All matches are being streamed live on World ParaVolley's YouTube channel.
