China jeopardised its advance, but the outlook cleared with Bulgaria’s failure against Iran.
Despite the complication caused by a surprise 2-3 loss to China, Cuba advanced for the first time to a Volleyball Nations League (VNL) final.
The step was secured with Bulgaria’s failure against Iran in the closing match of Group Seven, with fixtures continuing until this Sunday in the Polish city of Gdańsk.
Thus, the Caribbean team qualified for the decisive phase of the FIVB’s most important annual tournament, scheduled from 30th July to 3rd August in the Chinese city of Ningbo.
In the match that decided the fate of the team led by Jesús Cruz, the Iranians swept the Bulgarians with partials of 25-17, 25-17, and 25-16, securing a place among the top seven of the 18 contenders, who join the hosts.
Before overcoming Cuba with scores of 20-25, 25-23, 15-25, 25-22, and 19-17, the Chinese had only defeated Serbia 3-0 and the Netherlands 3-1 in June, finishing in penultimate place with nine losses.
Cuba accumulated six wins and an equal number of losses, with 20 points. If Slovenia beats Serbia in the current round’s closing match, Cuba would finish in seventh place.
For China, this was the second historic victory against Cuban squads. The previous occurred at the 2014 World Championship. The defeats were in the 2011 World Cup and the 2014 World League, all ending in tie-breaks.
This time, the Antilleans failed to find the formula to dominate the Asian squad, who were not superior in attack (51-69) or blocking (10-11), but were in serving (6-3). They also committed far fewer errors (29-37) and displayed outstanding defence.
Outside hitter Marlon Yant was the match’s top scorer with 31 points (29 attacks, two blocks), followed by outside hitter Miguel Ángel López (17: 14 attacks, 2 blocks, 1 ace), opposite hitter José Massó (13: 11-2-0), and middle blockers Javier Concepción (11: 8-3-0) and Roberlandy Simón (8: 4-2-2).
For their opponents, outside hitter Bin Wang shone (26: 24-1-1). Opposite hitter Chuan Jiang (13: 10-2-1) was the other player with double digits for his team.
Yant finished as the preliminary round’s top scorer with 237 points (200 attacks, 22 blocks, 15 aces), well ahead of Germany’s Filip John (210) and Bulgaria’s Aleksander Nikolov (208). He also leads in attack efficiency and ranks in the top ten for blocking and serving.
With only the matches between France and Poland, and Slovenia and Serbia remaining, the teams ahead of Cuba are Brazil (11 wins, 32 points), Italy (10-28), France and Japan (8-23), and Poland (7-21).
