Fantastic Nishida aces eight times in SuperLega victory

Yuji Nishida played a fantastic match on Wednesday, putting away eight serving aces towards an important Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia victory in Italy’s SuperLega Credem Banca.

The Japanese international led his team to a 3-1 (25-15, 22-25, 25-20, 25-22) home win over Gioiella Prisma Taranto in a postponed 14th-leg game that could prove key in the race to avoid relegation. In addition to his eight aces, Nishida produced 20 kills and a stuff block to top the scorers’ chart of the match on a total of 29 points and claim the Most Valuable Player award.

Three of Nishida’s teammates, German national team outside Christian Fromm, Brazilian international middle blocker Flavio Gualberto, and Mauricio Borges, also a former Brazilian international, reached the double digits, contributing 14 points each to the victory.

The team from Vibo Valentia, placed next to last in the current standings, improved to 5-12 and 15 points, narrowing down the gap between them and their main rivals from Taranto to five points, with two matches in hand.

In Wednesday’s other two postponed matches, Kioene Padua managed a 3-1 (25-21, 25-21, 23-25, 25-18) away victory over still winless Consar RCM Ravenna to regain their spot among the top eight in the standings, while Top Volley Cisterna produced a straight-set 3-0 (25-17, 26-24, 25-23) upset of visiting Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza to move up to 10th in the table.

Next on the SuperLega agenda are this weekend’s six matches of the 21st leg.

• Watch all the matches of the Italian men's and women's top-division leagues live or on demand on VolleyballWorld.tv.

• Get all the results, statistics, schedules and more on Volleyball World’s SuperLega 2021-2022 site.