China climbed a spot up to top the current Volleyball Nations League 2023 standings on a 5-0 win-loss record and 14 points after opening their home tournament in Hong Kong with a shutout of Canada on Tuesday. The North Americans dropped to 2-3 and six points, staying ninth in the table. Previous leaders Poland also started their Pool 3 campaign with a win, but losing a set to Dominican Republic cost them the first place on set ratio.
VNL 2023
China and Poland swap top spots in VNL standings
Both win their Pool 3 openers in Hong Kong
Published 02:33, 13 Jun 2023
The Chinese players celebrate
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China’s outside hitter Li Yingying was the best scorer of the match with 14 points towards her team’s victory, while middle and captain Yuan Xinyue excelled in blocking with three stuffs. Her Canadian counterpart, outside Alexa Gray, finished with 13 points. Hilary Howe and Kiera Van Ryk added another 12 and 10 for Canada, respectively.
Capitalizing on abundant Canadian errors and improving their own blocking efforts in set two, China completely dominated on the court to cruise to a two-set lead. Middle blocker Wang Yuanyuan delivered the 25-14 winner of the first set and outside hitter Wang Yunlu hammered the last point in the second to close it at 25-18. The third set was a completely different story. Canada had a three-point lead at 8-5, which China wiped out with three in a row for 8-8. The lead went back and forth, but the gap never exceeded two points again. A scoring race between Li Yingying and Alexa Gray unfolded to keep the battle burning, pushing the set deep into overtime. First, the North Americans wasted three set points. Then, then the Asians failed to convert their first two match points. On the third one, however, an off-the-net ace by sub-in Xu Xiaoting put an end to it all at 29-27.
Yuan Xinyue ready for another block
“Canada is a very good team and, especially in the third set, I enjoyed playing against them,” said setter Diao Linyu after the match. “Team spirit played an important role on the court and I am very happy with our game.”
Canada’s next match is against Bulgaria on Thursday at 13:30 local time (05:30 UTC). China will be back in action on Friday at 20:30 (12:30), also against the team from southern Europe.
Stysiak in attack
Pool 3 action in Hong Kong got underway earlier on Tuesday with Poland’s victory over Dominican Republic, their fifth in a row since the start of the tournament. The opponents from the Caribbean stayed in 10th place, now on a 2-3 win-loss record and four points. Poland’s Generation O star Magdalena Stysiak delivered a match-high 28 points, including four kill blocks. Middle blocker and captain Agnieszka Korneluk added another four stuffs and an ace towards an 11-point tally. Outside hitters Olivia Rozanski with 19 points and Martyna Lukasik with 10 on Poland’s side, and Brayelin Martinez with 21, Gaila Gonzalez with 19 and Yonkaira Pena with 14 for the Dominicans, also reached the double digits in scoring.
The first competition day of the second competition week continues with Pool 4 action in Brasilia, Brazil, where VNL rookies Croatia will challenge Olympic champions USA at 17:30 local time (20:30 UTC) and Japan will take on world champions Serbia at 21:00 (00:00).
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Here’s the schedule for June 13 and also the latest standings after Week 1.
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