Lausanne, Switzerland, May 28, 2019 – Last year’s champions the United States will face world champions Serbia in Conegliano highlighting the opening day of Week 2 of the FIVB Volleyball Nations League on Tuesday. The two squads will take each other on at the Zoppas Arena at 17.00 local time.
Their matchup promises to be an exciting one since four of the last seven world level major competition matches between these two teams went into a fifth set. At the VNL 2018, they met twice and are tied on win-loss records. Serbia won the league round match 3-1, while the USA won in the final round in straight sets.
The United States have started their 2019 VNL with three wins – straight-set wins over Belgium and Bulgaria and a four-set victory over Japan.
“We have some new players in this group and they are very strong,” USA coach Karch Kiraly said. “But there are also other teams with interesting athletes, so we will try to do our best in this competition.”
The reigning world champions, on the other hand, need to bounce back after losing in straight sets to Turkey. They earlier won 3-0 against the Netherlands and 3-1 against Korea.
“We are happy to be here in Italy,” Serbia coach Zoran Terzic said. “Our pool will be very challenging, but we’ll try to improve on our performances with the target of obtaining good results.”
Also playing in Pool 5 in Conegliano on the first day of week 2 are Italy and the Dominican Republic at 20.00 local time.
Pool 6 play in Ankara will start at 14.30 local time with the match of Russia and Germany, followed by the encounter between hosts Turkey and Japan at 17:30.
In the lone pool competition held in Asia this week, Pool 7 in Macau features one European team and three Asian teams – China, Korea and Thailand. Belgium and Korea will start the order of play on the second week at 15.30 local time, then China and Korea face each other in the second match at 19.30.
Pool 8 introduces the matches between Bulgaria and Poland at 16.30 local time and the Netherlands and Brazil at 19.30 in Apeldoorn.
All VNL matches will be available live and on-demand on Volleyball TV.
May 28 – full schedule:
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