2018 FIVB WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL NATIONS LEAGUE – FINAL 6/DAY 1
- June 27th-29th, 2018
- Semifinals on June 30th; Championship/3rd-Place Match on July 1st
- Nanjing, China | Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium (Capacity: 13,000)
- Time Zone: China Standard Time (UTC +08:00)
- World Rankings: #1 China, #2 USA, #3 Serbia, #4 Brazil, #8 Netherlands, #12 Turkey
- Pool A Preview (Brazil, China, Netherlands)
- Pool B Preview (Serbia, Turkey, USA)
- Schedule/Results
SCHEDULE:
Pool A:
| Date | Time | Score | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Total | Report | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Jun | 19:15 | China  |
3–1 |  Netherlands |
20–25 | 25–21 | 25–22 | 25–18 | 95–86 | ||
| 28 Jun | 19:15 | Brazil  |
3–0 | Netherlands |
25–16 | 25–17 | 25–23 | 75–56 | |||
| 29 Jun | 20:30 | China |
– | Brazil |
– | – | – | 0–0 |
Pool B:
| Date | Time | Score | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Total | Report | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Jun | 15:00 | United States  |
3–2 |  Turkey |
17–25 | 21–25 | 25–21 | 25–15 | 15–11 | 103–97 | |
| 28 Jun | 15:00 | Serbia  |
2–3 | Turkey |
25–20 | 21–25 | 18–25 | 25–19 | 14–16 | 103–105 | |
| 29 Jun | 15:00 | United States |
– | Serbia |
– | – | – | 0–0 |
STANDINGS:
Pool A
| Matches | Pts | Sets | Points | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Team | W | L | W | L | Ratio | W | L | Ratio | |
| 1 | Brazil |
1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | MAX | 75 | 56 | 1.339 |
| 2 | China |
1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3.000 | 95 | 86 | 1.105 |
| 3 | Netherlands |
0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0.167 | 142 | 170 | 0.835 |
Pool B
| Matches | Pts | Sets | Points | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Team | W | L | W | L | Ratio | W | L | Ratio | |
| 1 | Turkey |
1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1.000 | 202 | 206 | 0.981 |
| 2 | United States |
1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1.500 | 103 | 97 | 1.062 |
| 3 | Serbia |
0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0.667 | 103 | 105 | 0.981 |
TURKEY DEF. SERBIA 3-2
- Turkey def. Serbia 3-2 (20-25, 25-21, 25-18, 19-25, 16-14)
- Turkey moves to 1-1 (3 pts.) in the Final 6 (12-5 overall); Serbia falls to 0-1 (1 pt.) in the Final 6 (12-4 overall)
The United States got revenge on Turkey in the opener from an earlier group match, and Turkey did the exact same by downing Serbia in five sets. Beyond the vengeance, the victory keeps Turkey’s hopes alive for a bid to the semifinals, as a loss would have eliminated them. For Serbia, they now have a must-win tomorrow with USA which could create a three-way tiebreaker with a win.
Turkey’s calling card was their biggest strength throughout so far in the block, which gave them a 13-11 advantage. However, it also appeared to cause some mental distress for Serbia with how good it can be and led to the Serbians racking up five more errors. Those two were key to overcome a spike (63-59) and ace (6-5) advantage for Serbia.
Tijana Boskovic (31 points) almost led a Serbian comeback after they trailed 2-1 in sets and she helped push things to extra points in the fifth. She also had strong performances from Milena Rasic (14 points) and Bojana Milenkovic (13 points), but after the top three everyone else totaled just 22 points.
For Turkey, they didn’t get a 30 point explosion from any individual, although Hande Baladin hit the 20 point plateau. Ebrar Karakurt (14 points) and Eda Erdem Dundar (12 points, four blocks) were crucial as well, with the others outside of the top trio notching 31 points to make up for the deficit of each team’s top scorer.
Moving forward, things are simple if the Americans down the Serbians tomorrow; the U.S. and Turkey would advance. However, if Serbia downs the Americans it all goes down to how many sets it occurs in. If Serbia wins in three or four, Serbia and Turkey would move on. If Serbia wins in five, then everyone would be 1-1 with 3 points and it would go down to set and potentially point ratio to determine who moves on to the semifinals.
BRAZIL DEF. NETHERLANDS 3-0
- Brazil def. Netherlands 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-23)
- Brazil moves to 1-0 (3 pts.) in the Final 6 (13-3 overall); Netherlands falls to 0-2 (0 pts.) in the Final 6 (12-5 overall)
While Turkey kept themselves alive with a win in the early match, Netherlands could not do the same with their backs against the wall and crumbled against Brazil in straight sets. That means the Dutch are no more in the 2018 Volleyball Nations League while Brazil locks up a spot in the semifinals.
Brazil established an early physical advantage, and punished a lack of defense at the net from the Dutch early on, winning the opening two games 50-33 combined. Tandara Caixeta (17 points) continued her strong tournament while Gabriela Braga Guimaraes (14 points) and Ana Beatriz Correa (10 points, three blocks) each pitched in double-digit scoring. Adenizia Da Silva (9 points) wasn’t far behind, and was the leader in blocks (6) for the match.
In the losing effort, Lonneke Sloetjes (15 points) picked up where she left off from the previous match and Yvon Belien (8 points) was efficient, but no other Dutch player had more than five points. That was in large part due to the Brazilian defense at the net, that helped quell Netherlands attack and lead to the result.
As one would expect in a match where Brazil outscored the Dutch 75-56, the South Americans dominated the team stat categories. The most notable was a 10-2 edge in blocking, but they also had more spikes (45-36), aces (6-2) and only had two more team errors throughout being the aggressor.
As previously mentioned, the result means that Brazil now moves on to the semifinals. China will also get to join them now that the Netherlands’ tournament comes to a close. That means the China-Brazil match tomorrow will just determine who plays who in the semifinals, but neither team can really go hard for one result or another to set up a more favorable match since Pool B can go so many different directions. Nonetheless, the winner of China-Brazil gets the runner-up of Pool B, while the loser gets the victor of the pool.
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