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Bulgaria became the first team to claim a semifinal spot from Pool B in the continental Olympic qualifier in Berlin. They did so after winning two sets on the way to a 3-2 (25-21, 24-26, 25-22, 20-25, 15-13) victory over Serbia to top the standings undefeated. The final result almost put the European champions out of contention, since their only hope now rests on a highly unlikely straight-set win for the Netherlands over France in the last match of the pool.To Bulgaria’s power in serving, spiking and blocking, Serbia responded with Uros Kovacevic’s clever ways of sneaking the ball past the opponents’ blockers.

The first set went quite level through 12-12, after which the Serbian defence could no longer cope with the blistering hits from Bulgarian opposite Tsvetan Sokolov as he led his teammates to a 25-21 win.

The second set offered a tremendous battle, with frequent changes in the lead. Sokolov kept hammering away, but Kovacevic continued to faultlessly outwit the Bulgarian blockers with his virtuoso moves in offence. One of those finally put an end to the set at 26-24 Serbia’s way.

Bulgaria quickly recovered from a 7-2 Serbian lead in the third set and after 19-19 took control of the scoreboard. Todor Skrimov led the way with seven points, but it was Aleks Grozdanov’s spike through the middle that nailed the winning point for 25-22 and set the Bulgarian celebrations off.

With the semifinal pass in his pocket, coach Silvano Prandi changed all seven athletes on his squad. Obviously having no faith in the Netherlands surprising France later in the evening, coach Slobodan Kovac also benched some of his key players.

Serbia took the fourth set by 25-20, but in the tie-breaker the Bulgarians had the upper hand. With the Penchev brothers (Rozalin and Nikolay) at the core of a 6-2 run, they mastered a turnaround from 9-11 to 15-13 to win the match. Tsvetan Sokolov scored 20 times during the first three sets, enough to top the chart of the match.