After two rounds of preliminary round matches the Women's 19 EHF Championship 2021 in Italy, the four semi-finalists have already been determined: Italy, Serbia, Spain and Lithuania have qualified for the semi-finals.

• six of the nine scheduled preliminary round matches have been played
• although the semi-finalists are known, two matches on Thursday will decide the group winners
• Bulgaria, Turkey and Israel cannot finish higher than fifth in the tournament
• five of the six matches played so far have featured winning margins of 10 goals or more

In Monday’s first round of group A matches, Serbia beat Turkey 37:23 and hosts Italy defeated Bulgaria 38:32. With Serbia’s 39:29 victory against Bulgaria and Italy’s 37:27 win versus Turkey in Tuesday’s matches, Serbia and Italy both have the maximum four points from two matches. Their clash on Thursday will decide which team finishes tops group A.

In group B, which only has three teams, Spain recorded an emphatic 18-goal win against Israel, 35:17, on Monday. On Tuesday, Israel’s elimination from semi-final contention was confirmed when Lithuania beat them by a similar margin (33:17). When Spain meet Lithuania on Thursday, first place in group B will also be decided.

Tomova tops the charts

Despite Bulgaria's elimination from semi-final contention at the W19 EHF Championship 2021 in Italy, one of their players has made a big impression on the tournament. In just two matches, Mari Tomova has scored 30 goals, which is almost half of Bulgaria's total goals scored. While the match statistics show that she took 27 shots against Italy, Tomova's willingness to keep stepping up ensured that Bulgaria were competitive for more than 50 minutes.