Poland also played three five-setters in China, but won only the last one against Ukraine. On the last day in Linyi, the home team celebrated their first win in VNL 2026, a straight-setter against Cuba to climb to 14th place and leave the Cubans bottom of the table with just one point in four matches.
Three-time VNL runners-up USA and last year’s silver medalists Italy were the best teams in the pool played in Ottawa. The Italians started off with a five-set loss to Olympic champions France, but then delivered three consecutive wins, including a tie-breaker victory over USA on Sunday. They handed the Americans their first loss of the season, but stopped just short of overtaking them in the table. On 3-1 each, USA and Italy are third and fourth in the table, separated slightly on point ratios. In one of the most interesting matches in the Canadian capital, the United States came back from two sets down to defeat the home team in the tie-breaker.
After beating the world champions, France suffered three defeats in a row, at the hands of Canada, Turkiye and Germany, positioning themselves third from the bottom, in 16th place on 1-3 and 2 points. Also on 1-3, but with 6 points, Canada occupy 13th place, just below 11th-placed Turkiye and 12th-placed Germany, on 2-2 each.
The switch between Italy and Poland at the top end of the World Ranking was, of course the most important change in the chart during the first week of VNL. Among the other noteworthy movements, France plummeted from number four to number seven, with USA taking their place, while Japan climbed two positions to number five. Argentina also lost a lot of ground, dropping from number eight to number 13, Germany ascended from number 11 to number eight, while Serbia made an even bigger upward leap, from number 13 to number nine, pushing Bulgaria down to 10.
