Degradi inspires Italy for comeback win over China

In front of over 10 thousand spectators in Hong Kong, hosts China took a one-set lead twice in their Volleyball Nations League 2023 game against Italy, but with substitution outside hitter Alice Degradi stepping in, the defending champions came back to achieve a victory in the last game of the Pool 3 programme on Sunday. Having won all four of their matches in Hong Kong, Italy are now firmly above the line for the Finals, standing eighth in the current table on a 5-3 win-loss record and 12 points. Meanwhile China suffered their second consecutive loss in the competition and dropped to 6-2 and 18 in fourth place.

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While China’s outside Li Yingying was by far the best scorer of the match on 24 points, including three kill blocks and an ace, followed by opposite Gong Xiangyu with 17 and middle blocker and captain Yuan Xinyue with 15, opposite Sylvia Nwakalor and outside and captain Myriam Sylla shared the top scorer honours on the winners’ side with 15 points each, with Degradi following closely behind with 14.

To illustrate the even battle that unfolded throughout the first set of the match, the score swung from two points Italy’s way to three points China’s way and back to two points Italy’s way at 19-17. The home team equalized at 19-19 and then they kept a point-for-point battle through 23-23. Then they scored a break point to earn the first set point, which was immediately converted by Yuan Xinyue with an ace. The situation was not much different on the court during set two. The fierce fight continued and the gap went wider than two points only twice during the set, at 7-4 and 18-15 in favour of the European team. Finally, Italy’s Myriam Sylla delivered the 25-23 set winner in attack.

Stepping up their spiking efforts with Li Yingying leading the way, China stayed well in control of the scoreboard from the first to the last rally of the third set. After 20-18, the Asians went on a five-point spree, finished off by Italy’s sub-in Alice Degradi with a long shot out of bounds for 25-18 China’s way. However, the outside hitter more than made up for this mistake in the next two sets. Spearheading the attack, Degradi led her team with six kills in the fourth and another six in the tie-breaker as Italy never let China take the lead again. But in the end, it was captain Sylla that put away the winning point for 15-12.

“I’m happy, but I’m happy for the team because we started with some problems, but by helping each other and believing and trusting each other, regardless of who is a starter and who comes in from outside, we kept growing. It’s beautiful to play like this. We played as a team and we believed we could beat even a strong tea like China. We are growing, we are discovering our potential and now we want to go to the Finals,” said an elated Degradi after the match.

Italy and China will resume their VNL campaigns in 10 days, on June 28. During the last competition week of the Preliminary Phase, China will play in Pool 5 in Suwon, Korea, starting off against Serbia at 19:00 local time (10:00 UTC), and Italy will complete in Pool 6 in Bangkok, Thailand, facing Brazil in their next match at 20:30 local time (13:30 UTC).

Sunday’s competition day in Hong Kong began with the Netherlands’ shutout of Bulgaria, which lifted the Dutch win-loss record to 2-6. They are 13^th in the standings with eight points, just above 14^th-placed Bulgaria, who are on 1-7 and five points. In the turning moment of the match, the Netherlands denied a triple Bulgarian set point, finishing the first set off with five points in a row and cruising on to a straight-set victory, capitalizing mainly on their fantastic blocking and the abundant opponent mistakes. Bulgarian opposite Merelin Nikolova was the best scorer of the match on 17 points.

Then Türkiye managed a victory over Dominican Republic to improve to 6-2 and 19 points in third place. Led by Zehra Gunes with nine stuffs (within a total tally of 14 points), the Turks completely outblocked the Dominicans with 16 kill blocks against three. Their opposite Melissa Vargas topped the scorers’ chart of the match with 29 points, including a block and two aces. Gaila Gonzalez scored 17 times for Dominican Republic, whose win-loss dropped to 3-5 and they stand 11th on seven points.

Before that, in Saturday’s late match in Brasilia, Serbia produced a win over Croatia with Sara Lozo leading the way with 26 points (2 blocks, 3 aces), followed by Ana Bjelica with 21 points (1 block, 5 aces). The Serbs climbed ninth place on 3-5 and 10 points, while the Croats are still in the penultimate 15th place on 1-6 and three.

The last competition day in Brasilia has already started with USA winning the big match with Brazil by . Then, at 14:00 local time (17:00 UTC), Thailand will meet Croatia, before Germany take on Korea at 17:30 (20:30).

**Volleyball Nations League 2023: full schedule and results**

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