Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, January 10, 2020 – Playing at home and past history working in their favour, the Dominican Republic are the pre-tournament favourites as the NORCECA Women’s Volleyball Tokyo 2020 gets underway on Friday with two daily matches scheduled for the weekend.
The Dominicans are joined by the teams of Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico in their quest for a ticket to the Olympic Games in the Japanese capital.
Sellout crowds are expected for the three days at Sports Palace Virgilio Travieso Soto, a 10,000-seat facility located at the centre of Santo Domingo.
The home side is currently ranked 10th in the world by FIVB while Puerto Rico is next at 13th. Canada is ranked 18th and Mexico is at 21st.
In the last 20 years, the Dominican squads have built an amazing 86-5 win-loss record against their opponents of this tournament.
The home side has defeated Puerto Rico in 38 of their 41 contests and beaten Canada in 26 of 28 clashes. The Dominicans have won all their 22 matches against the Mexicans.
Meanwhile, one of the two victories of Canada in that period of two decades came as recently as 2018 via 3-0 at the Pan American Cup held in Santo Domingo and last year they stretched the Dominicans to five sets before succumbing in the same event in Lima.
From 1999 on, Puerto Rico (42-47) has a 16-8 record against Canada and 23-1 against Mexico while Canada (24-44) have a 14-2 record against México (3-59).