VNL 2025

Olympic champs shut out world champs in VNL

Italy remain unbeaten, Serbia fail to claim second win with Boskovic

Published 05:20, 10 Jul 2025

Italy (ITA) vs. Belgium (BEL) women - Pool 7 - Preliminary Phase #50560198

Defending trophy holders and reigning Olympic champions Italy stayed undefeated in this year’s women’s Volleyball Nations League as they took out reigning world champions Serbia in straight sets in Apeldoorn on Thursday. The Italians lead the current VNL standings on a 10-0 win-loss record and 28 points with a stamped ticket to the Finals in Lodz, while Serbia are still under imminent threat of relegation, running third from the bottom, in 16^th place on 1-9 and 8.

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The two southern European teams engaged in a competitive fight, but Italy capitalized on the abundant unforced errors the Serbians made to take the match in straight sets, 3-0 (25-17, 26-24, 25-20). Star opposite Paola Egonu led Italy in dominating the first set. Set two was the most competitive one. Serbia opened a gap that went as wide as four points at times, but in the money time, Italy reached the first set point and converted the second to double their lead. Serbia managed to come back from a five-point deficit in the third set only to let it slip away by a five-point margin in the end.

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Despite splitting her time on the court with 22-year-old back-up opposite Ekaterina Antropova, Paola Egonu emerged as the best scorer of the match with 17 points, all spiked in attack at a 59% success rate. Swinging at a 73% success rate, Antropova was Italy’s next best scorer, with nine points, including one kill block. Their counterpart and captain of Serbia Tijana Boskovic led her team with 14 attack points. 20-year-old outside hitter Vanja Ivanovic added another 11 points, including two aces.

“We are always very excited to play every match. I think it is really important to keep the consistency and stay in the game. Today we had some difficulties, but it is important that we came out with a 3-0 victory and we are happy about it,” Antropova told VBTV.