After the opening loss against Nexe at home, Vardar’s players were highly-motivated to deliver a much better performance against Vojvodina and secure first points. On Tuesday evening in Novi Sad, there was simply nothing coach Boris Rojevic and his guys could do dealing with five-time SEHA – Gazprom League champions from Macedonian capital. In the end, result was 16:26.

Macedonians opened the match well but weren’t able to widen the gap in the first with Vojvodina playing well in defense and patiently on the attacking side of the court. ‘Red&Blacks’ managed to open the gap to four in the final part of the first but Vojvodina reacted well through Jovica Nikolic and Darko Milenkovic to narrow the gap to only two (9:11) with 30 minutes left on the clock.

Middle part of the second turned out to be the key in this one with Vardar going on a 7:1 scoring series which brought them their first ten-goal lead of the game (11:21) and sealed the deal in this one. Until the very end of the game they were able to keep Vojvodina away sailing towards a big win which will surely wash out the bitterness of the loss against Croatian vice-champions a few days ago in Jane Sandaski sports hall.

Timur Dibirov was once again unstoppable finishing the match with seven goals while Guy Oliver Nyokas netted four adding three assists as well. Jovica Nikolic on the other side finished the match with five for hosts while Verkic and Bedoui combined for 12 saves.

In the next round Vardar will look for revenge in Nasice and Vojvodina will welcome the ‘Thunders’ only two weeks later in Novi Sad.

Boris Rojevic, Vojvodina coach:
Congrats to Vardar on a well-deserved win here today. Second half was the key. It's not that we're looking for excuses but three of our players were sidelined for this one and this obviously hurt our rotation, especially with half of the team still recovering from Covid and injuries. Defense was not so bad today but we must be better in attack in the future.

Aleksandar Kurtes, Vojvodina player:
We’ve made a lot of mistakes in attack allowing Vardar to score many easy goals. We were far from our best here today and we’ll have to figure things out quickly with the match against Partizan in Serbian championship right around the corner.

David Davis, Vardar 1961 coach:
Very important match for us in what will be a really busy February. We are still working on our game and it was hard to play without our middle-backs. Good match for us in the end. I am satisfied because we’ve had the opportunity to work on our game.

Darko Djukic, Vardar 1961 player:
Important game for us, especially after that opening loss against Nexe. Schedule ahead of us is incredibly tight which means we’ll have to figure things out on the go and this game was a very good preparation for that.