(Photo FIVB)
Canada and the Netherlands – advanced to next week’s Volleyball Nations League (VNL) Finals in China, both for the first time in the competition’s history.
Canada made a solid finish to their Preliminary Phase campaign, winning three of their four games in Hong Kong, where they played in competition week three.
In their first match, the North Americans outlasted the mighty Chinese team to earn a 3-2 (19-25, 25-17, 25-22, 23-25, 15-11) victory with a match-high 27 points from Kiera Van Ryk and another 25 from Alexa Gray. Then, the Canadians took the three points from the match against Belgium, beating the European side by 3-1 (10-25, 25-21, 25-17, 27-25). Van Ryk once again topped the match chart with 22 points.
In their third match, Canada opened a two-set lead against Italy before the reigning world and Olympic champions managed to mount a 3-2 (22-25, 27-29, 25-23, 25-23, 15-5). Van Ryk was Canada’s leading scorer again, with 27 points to her name. She put in another match high – 21 points towards the 3-1 (25-20, 17-25, 25-22, 25-18) victory over the Dominican Republic.
This way, Canada finished the Preliminary Phase on an 8-4 win-loss record and 24 points, occupying fifth place in the standings, and will take on Turkiye in their quarterfinal fixture on July 23. Van Ryk emerged as the top scorer of the entire first stage of the competition on an impressive total of 271 points. She also finished as the best attacker and the second best server of the Preliminary Phase.
“I am extremely proud of this team and how we improved from Quebec City until now,” said Canada’s Italian head coach Giovanni Guidetti. “It was a long journey with ups and downs, but the team never stopped working and growing. I am thankful to train this great group of players! And being in the final of VNL is a great achievement for us – it was the first goal of the season. Now we will have a very strong quarterfinal opponent, but we know that we can compete against anybody!”
The Netherlands spent their third competition week in Belgrade. They stormed the Serbian capital with three straight-set wins – 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 25-23) over France, 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-18) over Czechia and 3-0 (25-23, 25-23, 25-23) over Germany. On the last they, the Dutch were shut out by their hosts Serbia, but that could not push them below the cut-off line for the Finals. The Netherlands finished just above it, in seventh place on 7-5 and 21. They will challenge Italy in a July 22 quarterfinal.
The teams of USA, Italy, Brazil and Turkiye, in that order, took the places from first to fourth and booked their spots in the quarterfinals. Sixth-placed Japan also qualified, along with hosts China.
The Finals in Macao will be held from July 22 to 26.
