Türkiye overpowers China to win 2023 Volleyball Nations League
Olympics
Lee Feinswog
July 16, 2023
Türkiye’s Zehra Gunes battles China’s Yuan Xinyue/Volleyball World photo
ARLINGTON, Texas — Türkiye was too much for China on Sunday and won the Volleyball Nations League gold-medal match 25-22, 22-25, 25-19, 25-16.
Türkiye not only had more blocks (14-5) and more aces (8-4), it had opposite Melissa Vargas, the tournament MVP who had 21 kills, two blocks, three aces and 11 digs.
She not only won $10,000 for being one of the best position players in the tournament, she got $30,000 more for being MVP. And her team won $1 million, as compared to $500,000 for China.
Eda Erdem added eight kills and four blocks and Ebrar Karakurt had seven kills, three blocks and two aces. Gizem Orge had 20 digs.
China’s Li Yingying had 1i9 kills, a block and an ace. Xinyue Yuan had nine kills, a block and an ace and Yuanyuan Wang had seven kills, a block, 11 digs and an ace. Yunlu Wang had eight kills and an ace.
As Volleyball World reported, Türkiye, “led by first-year world-champion head coach Daniele Santarelli, the Turkish joined the United States, who won the first three editions of the VNL in 2018, 2019 and 2021, and Italy, who took the title last year, in the exclusive list of women’s national teams that managed to lift the coveted trophy.”
Also from VNL: Vargas was the top scorer of the VNL Finals with 65 points, nine more than Poland’s Magdalena Stysiak. She had 16 points in the quarterfinals against Italy, 23 in the semifinals against the United States and 26 in the gold-medal match against China. The Turkish opposite also ranked first in kills (55) and aces (five).
