Stars making an immediate impact in Women's VNL Week 2

The first two days of action of the second week of the Volleyball Nations League 2022 saw several women’s volleyball stars make their first appearances in this year’s edition of the tournament, with matches taking place in Brasilia, Brazil, and Quezon City, the Philippines.

Players like Italian opposite Paola Egonu, Brazilian outside hitter Gabriela ‘Gabi’ Guimaraes and American middle blocker Haleigh Washington will be instrumental to their team’s success in the tournament and they showed it right from the start, with memorable performances in their debuts.

· Watch all VNL 2022 matches live on Volleyball TV.

Playing in Brasilia, Egonu didn’t waste time and helped Italy secure their third victory in the tournament in a rematch of the 2018 FIVB Volleyball World Championship gold medal match against Serbia. The 23-year-old opposite recovered from a slow start to lead Italy to a 3-1 victory against their European rivals.

The 23 points Egonu produced in the match tied German outside hitter Hanna Orthmann's output as the most points registered by a player in the eight matches played between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Gabi’s debut in front of her home fans in Brasilia followed a similar path, with the Tokyo Olympic silver medallists dropping the first set to Türkiye before relying on their talismanic outside hitter to emerge victorious in a four-set battle.

Recently lifted to the role of team captain, Gabi led the Brazilian comeback by scoring 20 points and guiding her younger teammates, including opposite Kisy Nascimento, to a strong performance against the Turkish.

VNL 2022 Stats

After playing with a young roster in the opening week of the VNL 2022 in Shreveport-Bossier City, three-time defending champions United States took their main stars to Quezon City, with as many as five members of the team who won gold last year at the Tokyo Olympics on the court for the first time in their three-set victory against Bulgaria.

Among those players were outside hitter Kelsey Robinson, who produced a match-high 14 points, middle blocker Washington, who scored ten, including a match-high four aces, and libero Justine Wong-Orantes, who led the team’s defensive efforts with eight digs.

Despite her team’s defeat against Germany, Dutch captain Anne Buijs was also able to make a positive impact on the court. The 30-year-old outside hitter scored a team-high 19 points and also led in passes, with 12.

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