VNL 2025

World champs Serbia lose fifth tie-breaker in VNL at hands of France

Turkiye stay unbeaten with an emphatic sweep of Korea

Published 10:25, 21 Jun 2025

France (FRA) vs. Serbia (SRB) women - Pool 6 - Preliminary Phase #47887675

France’s Helena Cazaute tries to overcome the Serbian block

In Saturday’s closing women’s Volleyball Nations League match, France handed Serbia their fifth tie-breaker loss since the start of the competition to keep the reigning world champions winless at the bottom of the current VNL standings on a 0-7 win-loss record and 5 points. France, on the other hand, climbed to ninth place in the table on 3-4 and 9. Over in Istanbul, hosts Turkiye closed the competition day with an emphatic sweep of their game against Korea. On 7-0 and 19, the Turkish team is one of two still undefeated in the competition. They stand second to defending champions Italy, separated only on point ratios. Korea are second to last, in 17^th place on 1-6 and 3.

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France came back from a set down twice during their match with Serbia and persevered in the fifth set to snatch a 3-2 (21-25, 25-16, 16-25, 25-15, 15-13) win. They outplayed the home team mostly in offense, with 58 successful attacks against 46. Outside hitter and captain Helena Cazaute steered the team to victory with 26 points, including four kill blocks and an ace. With three blocks and an ace to her name, opposite Iman Ndiaye contributed a total of 22 points, while the other outside, Sabine Haewegene, finished with 12 points for France.

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“It was a match full of twists and turns. We didn't give up until the end. We knew how to stay united,” Haewegene commented. “We have a great group. Everyone plays together and encourages each other. It's huge to win against Serbia and I'm happy and proud of the team. We have a lot of fun on the court and we manage to handle the many matches well. I hope we will continue at this pace and string together more victories. We will give our all for it. Victories give us confidence and we give it our all, in matches and in training, to dream of the Finals.”

Serbia did better than their opponents in block-defense, but eventually that was not enough to score their first win of the season. The two middle blockers, captain Maja Aleksic and rising 20-year-old star Hena Kurtagic, produced nine of the team’s 15 kill blocks in the match. Aleksic raised five of those and fired a couple of aces to finish with a 14-point total, while Kurtagic added another 12 points. Another 20-year-old, outside Vanja Ivanovic, led Serbia with 15 points, all in swings.

There was no stopping Turkiye in their match against Korea and they hammered out a speedy 3-0 (25-11, 25-13, 25-17) shutout of their Asian visitors in Istanbul. Turkiye’s scoring effort was headlined by their two middle blockers. 21-year-old Berka Buse Ozden and 23-year-old Deniz Uyanik fired three aces and put up two kill blocks each, and registered a 65% combined success rate in their first-tempo attacks to top the scorers chart on 12 and 11 points, respectively. Opposite Jiyun Moon was Korea’s highest scorer with nine points to her name, all in spikes.

The last day of the VNL competition week will offer as many as nine matches. Sunday’s program will get underway in Hong Kong with a game between Bulgaria and Thailand, starting at 13:00 local time (05:00 UTC). Later in the day, rookies Czechia will take on Japan, while the big match of the day between hosts China and defending champions Italy is set to start at 20:00 (12:00). In Istanbul, Belgium will meet Canada and Korea will meet the Dominican Republic, before Turkiye and Brazil lock horns in the day’s highlight, serving off at 19:30 local time (16:30 UTC). Germany v Netherlands, France v USA and Serbia v Poland are the fixtures scheduled in Belgrade.