Chinese women’s national team head coach Cai Bin picked a list of 23 players for the upcoming Volleyball Nations League 2023 campaign. According to the roster announcements released by the national federation on Tuesday, middle blocker Yuan Xinyue will continue to captain the squad.
In addition to Yuan, another nine players from the 14 that represented China at last year’s 2022 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship were included in the new roster, including VNL 2022’s high scoring machines Li Yingying and Gong Xiangyu.
Top star Zhu Ting, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Most Valuable Player and former captain of the team, who last competed for China at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and skipped the entire 2022 season recovering from a wrist surgery, has not been included in the roster despite having a strong club season in Italy with Savino Del Bene Scandicci. Neither has her club teammate, setter Yao Di, who was also a part of the Chinese team at Tokyo 2020.
For China, the VNL 2023 season will start on May 31 with a game against mighty Brazil in Nagoya, Japan. During the second competition week, they will host a pool in Hong Kong before travelling to Suwon, Korea for week three. If they progress to the Finals, they will make the trip to Arlington, USA from July 12 through 16. Next on their 2023 schedule is the Asian Championship in Thailand from September 3 through 10, after which, from September 16 through 24, China will host Pool A of the FIVB Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifiers, where they will take on Canada, Czechia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Netherlands, Serbia and Ukraine in the race for two tickets to next year’s Olympic Games in France.
