With Güneş back, Türkiye top the Dominican Republic

Türkiye had two reasons to celebrate on Thursday as besides getting their second victory in the women’s volleyball tournament of the Paris 2024 Olympics by taking the Dominican Republic down in four sets, the Europeans also counted on the return of star middle blocker Zehra Güneş, who missed the team’s opening match due to an injury.

With Güneş in the starting lineup, the Türkish recovered from a slow start, as it had happened in their opening match against the Netherlands on Monday, to defeat the Caribbean 3-1 (21-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-15) at the South Paris Arena 1 and are now in a very comfortable position in Pool C.

With five points, Türkiye are currently in first place in the pool, but that could change later on Thursday, when Italy, who have three, meet the Netherlands, who have one after their five-set loss to the Turkish. The Dominicans haven’t yet earned any points in Paris and need to win their last pool match against the Netherlands to still have a chance of advancing.

Back in the team after being ruled out for the match against the Dutch due to an injury, the 25-year-old Güneş played all four sets and produced nine points (five kills, four blocks) for the Turkish, including the game-winner in a monster block.

The team’s top scorer was once again star opposite Melissa Vargas, who tallied an impressive 31 points (26 kills, three aces, two blocks), following up on a 30-point performance against the Dutch on Monday. Middle blocker Eda Erdem, with 14, and outside hitters Ilkin Aydin. and Hande Baladin, with ten each, also provided some scoring punch to the Turkish offense.

"Zehra is very important to our team," Erdem reflected. "She worked so hard to recover from her injury and we're really happy to have her back. She did very well today and I'm sure she'll only get better for the next matches. We again had a little bit of a slow start. The Dominicans were doing everything well and we couldn't dig or score points. In the second set, our defense got better and we got more efficient with our spikes. After that, we served well, slowed their offense down and also started making smarter choices in our attacks. It was an important win and now we'll prepare for a very difficult match against Italy, who are one of the best teams in the world."

The Dominicans, who couldn’t keep up the same level from the first set throughout the match, got 14 points (all in kills) from outside hitter Brayelin Martinez and another nine from her sister, middle blocker Jineiry Martinez.

"We got to face two very strong opponents (Italy and Türkiye) in our first matches here," setter and captain Niverka Marte said. "We have the confidence that we can fight against teams of their caliber, but on both matches, we made too many errors and that's just not possible at this level. Today we fought hard and had good moments, which makes us happy. Now we need to move forward and focus on the Netherlands. It's going to be another difficult match as they've been playing very well, but we'll prepare for it and try to limit our errors."

Paris 2024 – Match Schedule and Results

The Dominicans will play their last pool match in Paris on Saturday, at 9:00 local time (7:00 GMT), against the Netherlands, while the Turkish will complete their match schedule on Sunday, also at 9:00 local time (7:00 GMT), against Italy.

Three more matches on Thursday

The duel between Turkish and Dominicans was just the first of four women’s matches scheduled for the day at the South Paris Arena 1. At 13:00 local time (11:00 GMT), Brazil will play Japan in Pool B.

At 17:00 local time (15:00 GMT), Pool C will have its second match of the day, with European rivals Italy and the Netherlands battling. The daily match schedule in Paris will be completed with the encounter between hosts France and China, at 21:00 local time (19:00 GMT).

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