Serbia celebrate their first VNL medal
Italy triumphed with their first women’s Volleyball Nations League title. 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 an 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 for Italy. Shortly after, great hits through the middle by Danesi and Chirichella and a couple of spiking errors by Brazil in between extended the lead 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 Brazil 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 in the third set, 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...
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