Without numerous major players, Serbia managed to open its 2022 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League campaign on the right foot.
The 2022 FIVB Women’s VNL’s first 30-point performance didn’t result in a victory for her team. Last year’s leading scorer of the competition Britt Herbots put up an outstanding performance for Belgium against Serbia in Pool 2 in Ankara, Turkey. However, despite her output of 31 points, the ’Yellow Tigers’ succumbed to the reigning world champs in 4 sets.
The ladies of Daniele Santarelli, who selected a combined roster for his debut competition at the helm of Serbia, played a disastrous opening set but then recovered and dominated the court in the rest of the encounter thanks to 21 points from Ana Bjelica and as many as 7 blocks from Maja Aleksić. Apart from Herbots, one more player stood out for Belgium: Marlies Janssens with 5 blocks.
For China too, this is a new beginning. After the retirement of important players such as Yan Ni, but also of iconic coach Lang Ping, and the absences of Zhu Ting, Zhang Changning, and Yao Di, the new head coach Cai Bin has a difficult task to rebuild the compactness of the team.
China’s weaknesses were very much visible in their first match in this year’s VNL against the Netherlands in Pool 2 in Ankara. But, after losing the first set, the Asians got back on the right track and took the next 3 sets with a 2-point difference each to win the match. Wang Yuanyuan top-scored China with 21 points. Yuan Xinyue made 4 blocks.
2022 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League – preliminary stage, Week 1, today’s matches:
