Lubor Blazek hailed his players for maintaining their focus in a difficult season after USK Praha finally broke into the win column on Wednesday by defeating Dexia Namur.

Sviatlana Volnaya poured in 25 points in a splendid performance to fire the Prague team to an 81-73 success.

The victory has revived the club's hopes of progressing to the next stage of the EuroLeague Women.

Blazek said: "I am happy that we have gained our first victory tonight. We needed it so much after two close defeats at Namur and Valencia."

In the second week of the season, Praha fell 85-84 at Dexia, and then against Ros Casares of Valencia, they suffered an 80-78 loss.

Last week, Mondeville won 89-81 over the Czechs.

"We were concetrated for the whole game tonight and we turned the ball over just 12 times," Blazek said. "I think that is the main reason why we cruised to a victory tonight."

Dexia did not get the result they had hoped for after making a coaching change at the weekend.

They inserted Marc Silvert as the new coach in place of Thibaut Petit.

Silvert said: "We didn't play a bad game tonight, however, it is not possible to win if you have 22 turnovers."