Dentil Praia, Eczacibasi, Tianjin and VakifBank to continue in medal contention
Tijana Boskovic in action
A day before the end of the pool stage at the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship, the four semifinalists emerged. Vietnam’s Sport Center I Women’s Club of Hanoi and Brazil’s Gerdau Minas of Belo Horizonte suffered their second defeats in Hangzhou on Thursday and completed their campaigns at the tournament without a win. The remaining four teams – China’s Tianjin Bohai Bank, Türkiye’s Eczacibasi Dynavit Istanbul, Brazil’s Dentil Praia Clube of Uberlandia and Türkiye’s VakifBank Spor Kulubu of Istanbul – are now all qualified for Saturday’s semifinals and will play on Friday’s last day of the pool stage for better positions in the bracket.
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Pool A
Two-time club world champions Eczacibasi Dynavit Istanbul left no doubts over their superiority in the match against Gerdau Minas and cruised to an emphatic 3-0 (25-19, 25-11, 25-18) victory in their first game of the Club World Championship in China. This way, the Turkish side qualified for the semifinals for the seventh time in the history of the competition, also pushing hosts Tianjin Bohai Bank forward to the last four for the first time in the Chinese club’s three appearances.
Eczacibasi hammered out as many as eight aces towards their success, against none for Gerdau Minas. The attack also made a huge difference in the match, bringing in 43 points to the winners and only 24 to the team from Belo Horizonte. Only on very few occasions early into the sets, the Brazilian squad managed to take a small lead in the score, while Eczacibasi prevailed at the end by a solid margin, with setter Elif Sahin finishing off the match with two aces in a row. The team’s Serbian opposite and captain Tijana Boskovic topped the scorers’ chart of the match with 17 points, including, two aces. Russian outside Irina Voronkova impressed with four aces and two kill blocks towards a 13-point tally, while none of Gerdau’s players managed to get close to the double digits.
In the deciding battle for the first place in the final Pool A standings, Tianjin will take on Eczacibasi on Friday at 19:30 local time (11:30 UTC).
Pool B
In their first match in Hangzhou, Dentil Praia Clube achieved a straight-set 3-0 (25-10, 25-22, 27-25) victory over Sport Center I Women’s Club,…
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