ANKARA, TURKEY — In Sunday’s final in Ankara, the reigning European champions hammered out a 3-0 (25-23, 25-22, 25-22) win over Brazil and left the South Americans with a third consecutive VNL silver.
Earlier on Sunday, Serbia made their first-ever VNL podium after winning the bronze medal match, also in straight sets. The reigning world champions bounced back from their semifinal loss to Brazil on Saturday and claimed a hard-fought 3-0 (27-25, 25-17, 26-24) victory over Finals hosts Türkiye.
Italian star opposite Paola Egonu once again led her team as the best scorer of the final match. This time she tallied 21 points, including three blocks, towards the three-set victory. Outside hitter Caterina Bosetti added another 11. Opposite Kisy Nascimento was Brazil’s best scorer on 14 points, followed by captain Gabriela Guimaraes on 11.
A five-point run, including three kills by Egonu and a block by middle Cristina Chirichella, helped Italy open a wide early 10-3 lead in the first set. Brazil scored some great points trying to get back on track, like an ace by middle blocker Ana Carolina Da Silva for 17-13, or an overpass kill by Gabi for 23-20, but what could have really served as a momentum changer was a three-point series with an ace from Gabi and monster blocks from Kisy and Carol for 23-22.
However, it was still not enough to completely catch up. Italian middle Anna Danesi took advantage of a free ball mistake on the opponents’ side to hammer the overpass for a 24-22 set point. Two serving errors later, the set was over at 25-23 Italy’s way.
The second set was quite close until Bosetti’s gentle touch widened the margin to three, 12-9 Italy’s way. Shortly after, great hits through the middle by Danesi and Chirichella and a couple of spiking errors by Brazil in between extended it further from 12-10 to 16-10. Once again, Brazil kept fighting to partially close that gap, but were never able to recover completely. Egonu attacked between the blocker’s hands to bring in set point at 24-21. A rally later, sub-in setter Ofelia Malinov surprised the opponents with a ball over on two to close the set at 25-22.
Italy were able to break away again right after the technical timeout, which came at 12-11 Brazil’s way. A solid hit by outside Elena Pietrini was followed by kill blocks from Egonu and Danesi and a successful swing from Bosetti for 15-12. With sub-in Ana Cristina de Souza pumping additional fuel to the Brazilian offence, the South Americans were able to battle their way back to a 20-20 level.
But that was as far as the Italians would let them go. They regained control of the scoreboard. Egonu’s off-the-block hit delivered the match point at 24-22 and Chirichella produced the match winner with a monster block for 25-22.
Serbian outside hitter Sara Lozo was on fire with a 62% success rate in attack and a kill block towards a 19-point match high, followed by cross-court teammate Bianka Busa with 14 points and opposite Ana Bjelica with 12 in the bronze medal game.
Turkish opposite Ebrar Karakurt was her team’s most prolific player with 14 points, while middle blocker Zehra Gunes added another 13, including five blocks.
The VNL action doesn’t stop here, however, with the men’s competition in Bologna running 20-24 July.
For more information on the VNL finals visit the Volleyball World website.
Volleyball World Media Release
Photo credit: Volleyball World
