Lausanne, Switzerland, March 26, 2019 – Great plays and mega rallies were a key feature of the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Nations League and the top five from the women's finals were included in the video below, a reminder that this year's competition is less than two months away, starting on May 21, and set to produce more breathtaking action.
• Brazilian outside hitter Gabriela Braga Guimaraes, who was both the best spiker and the best receiver of the women's finals in Nanjing, and libero Suelen Pinto, who made the Dream Team of the 2018 VNL, advanced to the semifinals of the Brazilian Superliga with their club teams on Thursday. Gabi’s Itambe/Minas Belo Horizonte, table leaders of the regular season, won the first two games of their best-of-three quarterfinal playoff against Curitiba Volei. So did the team of Suelen, regular-season runners-up Dentil/Praia Clube Uberlandia, in their series against Fluminense FC Rio de Janeiro. Both clubs will find out their semifinal opponents on Wednesday, when the other two quarterfinal match-ups are set to be resolved.
• All three Chinese players, taking part in the best actions featured in the above video - Chunlei Zeng, Linyu Diao and Xinyue Yuan - have already finished their season in China’s Super League. Chunlei Zeng and her club team Beijing Baic Motor triumphed as champions. Jiangsu Zenith Steel Nanjing, with Linyu Diao, finished fourth, while Bayi Nanchang, with Xinyue Yuan took the ninth place.
• Dutch libero Myrthe Schoot plays for Rote Raben Vilsbiburg. On Saturday, they won their last regular season match in the German Bundesliga and finished fifth on a 13-9 win-loss record. Next weekend they travel to Potsdam for the first fixture of their best-of-three quarterfinal playoff.
• The other member of the Netherlands’ team with a heroic action in the video, Anne Buijs, who was the second best digger of the VNL finals, and her club team Saugella Monza are just two sets away from winning the CEV Challenge Cup, the third strongest club competition in Europe. The Italian squad shut out their Turkish hosts Aydin BBSK in the first leg of the final series and entertain their opponents for the second leg on Wednesday at home, in Monza. In the Italian Serie A1, Saugella rank fifth in the current standings on a 15-8 win-loss record. Their last match of the regular season before the playoffs, at home against Zanetti Bergamo, is scheduled for Saturday.
• Another Italian club, Savino Del Bene Scandicci, with Serbia’s Jovana Stevanovic on its squad, finished fifth in the CEV Champions League, the most prestigious of the European Cups, falling just short of making the semifinals. Stevanovic and her teammates will also be in action on Saturday, looking for a home win against Banca Valsabbina Millenium Brescia to cement themselves among the top three of the regular season in the Italian domestic league, where they currently stand on a 17-6 record.
• Bojana Zivkovic, the other Serbian in the video, is part of Lokomotiv Kaliningrad, the successful Russian start-up, which finished second in the domestic Superliga regular season on a 19-3 record. One day after her 31st birthday, Zivkovic will be in playoff action on Saturday, when Lokomotiv entertain Enisey Krasnoyarsk in the first match of their best-of-three quarterfinal series.
• Turkey’s Hande Baladin from the #1 rally in the video helped her Galatasaray Istanbul reach the quarterfinals of Europe’s second club competition, the CEV Cup. A golden set, lost to Romania’s Volei Alba Blaj, separated the team from making the semis. In Turkey’s domestic league, Galatasaray ended the regular season in fourth place on a 13-9 record. On March 17, they won their first quarterfinal match against city rivals Besiktas Istanbul in four sets. The second game of their best-of-three series will take place on Friday.