Vojvodina will on Wednesday, 17 August (16:00 CEST) welcome PPD Zagreb in what will be the second quarter-final matchup of the season in the SEHA - Gazprom League after reigning champions Telekom Veszprem already managed to book a place in Zadar with a win over Tatran Presov on Sunday evening.

Serbian champions certainly do not have history books working in their favor with PPD Zagreb managing to qualify for every SEHA - Gazprom League final tournament so far. Vojvodina is however on the rise with coach Boris Rojevic doing a great job in the Serbian north and it will be interesting to see how much they can do against this Zagreb team. This Zagreb team is looking much better than last season with Timur Dibirov, Vuko Borozan and Milan Milic coming as reinforcements to the team which was already looking really well last season in both EHF Champions League and SEHA - Gazprom League. The roster they have gives them a favorite role ahead of this one but, as we all know, it takes some time to get everything to function the right way. Coach Rojevic and his guys surely have that part of the equation figured out despite the fact they lost Jovica Nikolic this summer. In their last SEHA encounter, a little over three and a half years ago, Zagreb won 25:23. Croatian champions also have 10 wins from just as many SEHA matches against the team wearing red and white but on Wednesday at 16:00 CEST that won’t mean much so make sure to tune in!

Ivica Obrvan, PPD Zagreb coach:
The goal is to enter the match in the best possible way. Obviously, the moment is not ideal as we just got back from preparations but I believe in case we manage to stay focused and patient, we’ll reach our main goal and that is to qualify for Zadar. We respect Vojvodina and know a lot about their roster which is looking really good and we’ll have to deliver a more than a solid performance to outplay them.

Jakov Gojun, PPD Zagreb player:
These first matches of the season are never easy but our goal is to qualify for Zadar and to do that we’ll have to win in Novi Sad. Obviously, it won’t be easy at all but I feel like we have a really good preparation period behind us. When it comes to the roster – we’re still waiting for Kavcic to fully recover, but Borozan and Dibirov are now here which is great. We’ll need some time to get everything to function the right way but I feel like we have a really good season ahead of us.

Boris Rojevic, Vojvodina coach:
New season and a lot of new names on our roster mean it is going to take us some time to get everything to look the way we want it to. Our ambitions remain the same – we’d like to win all titles in Serbia and see how far we can go in international competitions. We’re opening the season against one of the best teams in the League but we’ve shown already that we can play everyone despite the budget difference. I want us to be brave and stick to our plan.

Milan Vukovljak, Vojvodina player:
We have almost a whole new team with 11 new players which is why we’re still kind of getting used to each other. By that, we are in the middle of the preparation period. Despite everything, we’ll do our best to perform well against PPD Zagreb on Wednesday.

Photo credit: kolektiffimages