Turkiye hammers first win, Poland stays perfect in VNL 2025

Turkiye celebrated their first win in the men’s 2025 Volleyball Nations League, and it was an emphatic shutout of hosts China in Xi’an on Sunday, preventing them from extending their two-game winning streak. In the very last game of Pool 3, held this week in China, Poland beat Serbia in straight sets to stay undefeated. So, before the start of the last competition days in Pools 1 and 2, Poland are on top of the current VNL standings on a 4-0 win-loss record and 12 points, Japan are second on 3-1 and 9, China are sixth on 2-2 and 6, while Turkiye, the Netherlands and Serbia are 13^th, 14^th and 15^th, respectively, on 1-3 and 3 each, ordered on set ratios.

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With a brilliant Efe Mandiraci leading the way, Turkiye mastered a 3-0 (25-22, 25-21, 25-20) sweep of their last match of the first competition week and made sure they do not leave Xi’an empty-handed. The 23-year-old outside hitter fired five of the team’s six aces, against only one for the entire Chinese team. Mandiraci also raised two kill blocks and spiked at a 55% success rate in attack to pile up an impressive match high of 24 points, including the game winner at the end of the third set. While none of the other Turkish players reached the double digits in the match, middle blocker Bedirhan Bulbul left his mark with three of the team’s nine kill blocks. Outside Yu Yuantai was China’s most prolific scorer in the game with 15 points to his name.

“The jetlag was finally over,” Turkish setter and captain Murat Yenipazar told VBTV. “No, that’s just a joke. I think today we played a really good game, really good volleyball. This was our fourth game, so I think the pressure was lower and we could play well. Of course, for the next matches we will go harder. I finally had our first win and I hope we will have more…”

Poland put together a solid performance against Serbia. The world’s number one team mastered a 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-23) victory, outpacing the opponents in both spiking and blocking. Opposite Kewin Sasak led the way with a match-high 14 points, including one ace and one kill block. Middle Mateusz Poreba authored three of Poland’s eight kill blocks in the match to finish with 12 points. Outside Artur Szalpuk and Serbia’s most prolific scorer Veljko Masulovic put away 10 points each.

“I feel amazing! For me, it’s a big thing to be here, to be with this group and to represent my country at this tournament. I am happy that we won every game and I think we played really well,” said Kewin Sasak. “This is national-team level, so there are very good players here, but we knew how we could play and we tried to focus on our level of volleyball.”

VNL action resumes shortly with Sunday’s Pool 2 games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Pool 1 games in Quebec City, Canada.

Volleyball Nations League 2025: full schedule and results

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