Volleyball | China, Korea emerge as frontrunners after day one

The 2019 edition of the FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League (VNL) kicked off yesterday, with the first two matches playing out victories for the Chinese and Korean teams.

The competition, held at the court of the Macau Forum, is being held for the second time this year in replacement of the former FIVB World Grand Prix.

The first match of the day saw Belgium pitted against Korea. The second match had China facing off Thailand, due to start only after the official kick- off ceremony had concluded.

In the first match, Korea claimed the first victory of the Macau part of the global competition, beating Belgium by an expressive 3-0 whitewash.

After the match, Korea’s coach Stefano Lavarini said he was impressed by the positive mindset shown by Korean players as they scored a straight- set victory (25-15, 25-17, 25-21) securing the team’s first win in the 2019 VNL.

“To have received compliments from Gert, who is such a great coach, is something that I am really proud of,” said Lavarini at the press conference that followed the match. “I would like to congratulate my team.  We played with improved attitude and confidence, our serves are strong and, even though we lacked composure in some situations, it was important to start the match well.”

“I feel the Belgium players were a little nervous today and made more mistakes than they are used to, but credit to our players that we played with an attacking mentality to achieve the positive result.”

The comments were complemented by those from the Korea team captain, Kim Su Ji, who added, “we are maturing as a team and our players are adjusting to the coaching style of our coach. Our goal is to keep improving day by day.”

From the Belgium side, team captain Ilka Van De Vyver said the team would study the loss and work harder in the next match.

“It was a really hard game for us,” she said. “We could not find our game, we could not score and we could have controlled the situation better. Every game is important for us, so we are going to work hard to prepare for the next game.”

In the last match of the day, China beat Thailand with the same 3-0 result, but showing more consistency in their game and controlling the score progression during all the sets.

The most balanced score was achieved in the first set with China winning by a margin of just four points (25-21).

Today, Korea will face Thailand in the first match on the at 4:30 p.m., while in the evening match (7:30 p.m.) China will face Belgium.