Italy Beats Russia, Dutch Top Turkey on Day 1 of Rabobank Super Series

2018 Rabobank Super Series

• August 7th-12th, 2018
• Hoogeveen, Netherlands
• Tournament program

The Rabobank Super Series kicked off on Tuesday in the Hoogeveen, Netherlands, as Russia, Italy, Turkey, and the host Dutch women play in a small international tournament ahead of the upcoming World Championships. The four teams will play in round-robin f ormat across three days, before semi-finals on Saturday and classification matches on Sunday.

On the first day of competition, Italy played Russia while the Netherlands played Turkey.

Italy 3, Russia 1

In the first match of the day, Italy, who brought their fully-fledged (healthy) roster to the match, beat Russia 3-1 (25-17, 17-15, 25-22, 25-20).

Italy started the match with their teenage superstar Paola Egonu at opposite, Lucia Bosetti and Myriam Sylla at outside hitter, Anna Danesi and Cristina Chirichella at middle blocker, Ofelia Malinov at setter, and Monica de Gennaro at libero. Elena Pietrini replaced Sylla for the  last 3 sets of the match, giving some insight into the potential lineup battles still ongoing in the Italian camp.

Egonu led all players with 21 points in the match, while Chirichella and Bosetti each added 11.

Russia was led by 17 from 22-year old outside hitter Irina Voronko, followed by 12 from Nataliya Goncharova.

Russia played only about half of their regular starting lineup in the match. Angelina Lazarenko wasn’t on the roster for the match, while captain Ekaterina Lyubushkina was on the bench and failed to score, leaving the Russians overmatched in the middle of the court.. Regular setter Tatiana Romanova also didn’t start for Russia, though she is on the team’s roster.

Netherlands 3, Turkey 1

The Netherlands beat Turkey 3-1 (21-25, 25-19, 25-17, 25-21) in a rematch of the Dutch’s 3-2 win during preliminary play of the Volleyball Nations League.

While the Dutch have won both of the teams’ matchups so far in 2018, the Turkish women have the last laugh, as they took silver in the Nations League while the Dutch finished 5th.

With Robin de Kruijf still absent from the Dutch side while working her way back from knee surgery in March, Nicole Koolhaas joined Yvon Belien in the middle.

Turkey won the first set, before Holland fought back to take three-straight and the match.

Full Schedule

Match Replay Videos

Italy vs. Russia, part 1:

Italy vs. Russia, part 2:

Netherlands vs. Turkey