Tianjin v Praia and Imoco v Vero Volley in club world semis

Hosts Tianjin Bohai Bank will take on Brazil’s Dentil Praia Clube Uberlandia in one of Saturday’s semifinals of the 2024 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship in Hangzhou, China. An all-Italian clash between Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano and Numia Vero Volley Milan shaped up in the other. The pool stage of the tournament came to a completion on Friday and the semifinal match-ups were finalized. Tianjin and Praia will hit the court at the Huanglong Sports Center at 15:00 local time (07:00 UTC). Imoco and Vero Volley will lock horns at 19:30 (11:30).

• Watch the FIVB Volleyball Women's Club World Championship on VBTV

Pool A

The last match of the pool stage did not make an exception and was resolved in straight sets, just like the previous 11. In front of an official count of 3,383 spectators, Tianjin Bohai Bank made sure they finish first in their pool standings without a set lost by sweeping Friday’s game against Brazil’s Gerdau Minas Belo Horizonte. Celebrating a 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 25-22) victory, the Chinese team advanced to the Club World Championship semifinals for the second time, after finishing third with the bronze last year, also in Hangzhou. Gerdau Minas were eliminated from the tournament after taking the third place in Pool A on a 1-2 win-loss record. Italian rookies Numia Vero Volley Milan, who had secured their semifinal ticket already on Thursday, finished pool runners-up on 2-1.

Minas scored more attack points than Tianjin and the same number of aces, while the Chinese side did slightly better in blocking. What tilted the balance heavily in favour of Tianjin were the unforced errors, of which the Brazilian team committed more than double those of the home team, 27 against 13. Outside hitter and captain Li Yingying led the winners with 22 points, including one ace, and shared the top scorer honours with Minas’s opposite Kisy Nascimento, whose 22-point tally included one ace and one kill block. The Brazilian captain, middle blocker Thaisa Menezes, also reached the double digits, headlining the blockers with four stuffs, to which she added three aces and three kills in offence.

Pool B

In the last Pool B match earlier on Friday, Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano hammered out a 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-19) shutout of Japan’s NEC Red Rockets Kawasaki to finish on top of the final pool standings on a perfect record, without a set dropped over the three matches played in the pool. This was the fourth time out of four Club World Championship appearances Imoco progressed to the semifinals. The first three times they always also advanced further to final matches. The Asian team finished the pool in third place on a 1-2 win-loss record and out of further contention in the tournament, thus allowing Dentil Praia Clube Uberlandia to stay in second place on 2-1 and advance to the Club World Championship semifinals for the second time in the club’s history, after doing so last year as well.

The blocking made the big difference in the match between Imoco and NEC. The Italian team piled up as many as 13 kill blocks against only five by their Japanese opponents. Swedish star opposite Isabelle Haak authored three of those and fired two aces to finish on a match-high 17 points. Imoco’s outsides – Zhu Ting of China and Gabriela Guimaraes (Gabi) of Brazil – also reached the double digits with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Red Rockets’ outsides Yoshino Sato and Thailand’s Ajcharaporn Kongyot also scored 12 points apiece, while middle blocker and captain Haruyo Shimamura put away 10.

2024 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship: schedule and results

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