Poland on to the semis after emphatic win over Turkiye

Poland continued their victorious quest at the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship in the Philippines and booked the second ticket to the semifinals. In Wednesday’s second quarterfinal game in Pasay City, they shut out Turkiye and will take on Italy in one of the two semifinal matches set to take place on Saturday, September 27.

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With middle blocker Jakub Kochanowski owning the net, with excellent effort in both spiking and blocking, Poland completely dominated the first set. It was Kochanowski’s block-out hit that closed the set at a wide margin. Poland broke away early into the second set and, with outside hitter Wilfredo Leon on fire, opened a gap as wide as five points. Turkiye attempted a comeback with the Lagumdzija brothers, Mirza and Adis, leading the way, and got back to within one in the money time, but that was as far as they could get before Poland doubled their lead in the match. At 6-6 in set three was the last time in this match the score was even. Poland jumped ahead again and never looked back. Kochanowski delivered a spectacular ending, with two back-to-back aces to close it off at 3-0 (25-15, 25-22, 25-19).

Poland outperformed Turkiye in all three scoring elements – in attack by 40-32 in spike kills, in serving by 6-1 in aces, and in net defense by 7-2 in kill blocks. Kochanowski shined with three aces, three kill blocks and an impressive 86% success rate in offense towards a 12-point contribution to the victory. Leon produced a match-high 13 points, including three kill blocks and an ace. Opposite and captain Bartosz Kurek spiked at a 60% success rate and put away an ace to reach the double digits with 10 points.

“We feel very good! You don’t win a quarterfinal by 3-0 every day. We were pushing a lot and I am happy for that,” Leon told VBTV. “Congratulations to the Turkish team and the Turkish fans, to all the people in the Philippines and also to our fans! Keep cheering for us! We will bring a lot of energy to the court and we will do our best. To play against Italy will always be one of the best games. I hope we will make an amazing game here for all the fans around the world.”

Turkiye made one unforced error fewer than Poland, 21 against 22. Opposite Adis Lagumdzija was their leading scorer of the match with 12 points, all in swings at a 57% success rate.

“We wanted to play much better than we played today, but it is what it is. Poland played a good game – I wouldn’t say amazing, and that’s why I am sad about it,” he said. “We couldn’t handle it today. I hope we learn some lessons from it. It is good for our future to understand that it’s not easy, the tournaments are long, and we have to stay healthy and concentrated all the time. If we don’t count today, we played amazing volleyball, because we were fighting for every ball, we were communicating well… We played real high-level volleyball and that’s what it’s all about. I hope we can continue to learn and bring this kind of vibe and this kind of energy in the VNL next season.”

The quarterfinal round in Pasay City will come to a completion on Thursday. At 15:30 local time (07:30 UTC), Czechia and Iran will cross swords for a place in the semifinals. USA and Bulgaria will determine the last semifinalist in a quarterfinal starting at 20:00 (12:00).

2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship: full schedule and results

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