{"id":43109,"date":"2019-07-05T02:47:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T02:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asianvolleyball.net\/new\/?p=43109"},"modified":"2019-07-05T02:47:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T02:47:59","slug":"china-and-italy-fight-for-last-vnl-semifinal-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asianvolleyball.net\/new\/china-and-italy-fight-for-last-vnl-semifinal-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"CHINA AND ITALY FIGHT FOR LAST VNL SEMIFINAL SPOT"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p>Nanjing, China, July 5, 2019 \u2013 China and Italy will clash on Friday for the last semifinal spot available in the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Nations League. The host team lost to Turkey in four sets, while Italy dropped their match against European rivals Turkey in straight sets, forcing a decider to complete the final four cast this year.<\/p>\n<p>China finished in third place last year, beating Brazil in straight sets, while Italy are newcomers of the VNL Final Six. China rallied from two sets down to win 3-2 in their preliminary round encounter at this year\u2019s competition, ending China\u2019s losing run against Italy at world level.<\/p>\n<p>The winning team will join Turkey, Brazil and the United States, following their respective victories in the first two days of final round pool play.<\/p>\n<p><strong>China &#8211; Italy (July 5, 2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Head-to-Head<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2022 China have a W22-L20 record against Italy in major world level competitions.<br \/>\n\u2022 China defeated Italy 3-2 in the 2019 Volleyball Nations League preliminary round on 6 June, after trailing by two sets. This ended a five-match losing run for China against Italy at world level.<br \/>\n\u2022 Paola Ogechi Egonu delivered 40 points for Italy in that 3-2 defeat in the 2019 VNL, one shy of the VNL record set by Poland&#8217;s Malwina Smarzek who won 41 against Bulgaria on 28 May 2019.<br \/>\n\u2022 Egonu (27) also scored the most points in the only other VNL encounter between China and Italy, a 3-1 Italian win in the 2018 preliminary round.<br \/>\n\u2022 China could defeat Italy in back-to-back world level matches for the first time since a 3-0 at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and a 3-1 at the 2017 World Grand Prix.<br \/>\n\u2022 The winner of this match will join Turkey, Brazil and United States in the 2019 VNL semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>China<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2022 China lost 3-1 against Turkey in their first final round match in the 2019 Volleyball Nations League.<br \/>\n\u2022 China finished in third place in the inaugural edition of the VNL in 2018. They beat Brazil in straight sets in the third-place decider (25-18, 25-22, 25-22).<br \/>\n\u2022 China could lose successive VNL matches for the first time since losing their opening two in the 2019 preliminary round.<br \/>\n\u2022 Only United States (18) have won more VNL matches in straight sets than China (16).<br \/>\n\u2022 Ting Zhu (119), Xinyue Yuan (119) and Xiangyu Gong (117) are leading China in terms of scoring in the 2019 VNL.<br \/>\n\u2022 Yanhan Liu (21) scored the most points for China in the 3-1 defeat against Turkey.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Italy<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2022 Italy could reach the Volleyball Nations League semi-finals for the first time. Last year, they finished the preliminary round in sixth place but missed out on a spot in the final round as ninth-placed China took their ticket as hosts of the final phase.<br \/>\n\u2022 On their debut in the VNL final round, Italy lost in straight sets to Turkey on 4 July. Paola Ogechi Egonu (12) was the only Italy player to reach 10 points that match.<br \/>\n\u2022 Italy can suffer three successive defeats for the second time in the VNL after a run of four defeats in their opening four fixtures in last year&#8217;s edition.<br \/>\n\u2022 Elena Pietrini (208) and Indre Sorokaite (203) are Italy&#8217;s leading points scorers in the 2019 VNL. Last year, Paola Ogechi Egonu (180) won most points for Italy in the VNL.<br \/>\nOnly Turkey&#8217;s Zehra Gunes (25) has more aces in the 2019 VNL than Sorokaite (24).<\/p>\n<p>Related links of AVC<br \/>\nAVC Website: click www.asianvolleyball.net<br \/>\nAVC Facebook: click www.Facebook.com\/AsianVolleyballConfederation<br \/>\nAVC Twitter: click: https:\/\/twitter.com\/avcvolley<br \/>\nAVC Instagram: click: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/avcvolley\/?hl=en<br \/>\nAVC Youtube: click: Asian Volleyball Confederation<br \/>\nAVC WeChat: Asian Volleyball Confederation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nanjing, China, July 5, 2019 \u2013 China and Italy will clash on Friday for the last semifinal spot available in the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Nations League. The host team lost&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider","category-volleyball-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>CHINA AND ITALY FIGHT FOR LAST VNL SEMIFINAL SPOT - Asian Volleyball Confederation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asianvolleyball.net\/new\/china-and-italy-fight-for-last-vnl-semifinal-spot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CHINA AND ITALY FIGHT FOR LAST VNL SEMIFINAL SPOT - Asian Volleyball Confederation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nanjing, China, July 5, 2019 \u2013 China and Italy will clash on Friday for the last semifinal spot available in the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Nations League. 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