After a thrilling quarterfinals on the men’s side of the bracket, the women took center stage Tuesday with four massive games on the schedule.
The action kicked off with China vs. Turkiye, followed by Brazil vs. the Dominican Republic, the United States vs. Poland and wrapped up with Italy vs. Serbia.
Vargas powers Turkiye past China and into semifinals
Neither of these teams had any trouble getting through their group, as China earned the three seed with two wins and Turkiye finished second in Pool C to qualify automatically.
Turkiye did have problems with the Chinese defense early, as it was inefficient on offense in the first set, finishing only 18 of 43 swings. On the other end, China was much more efficient with 15 kills on 34 swings, helping the Chinese build a 24-20 lead late after a tight set. Turkiye made a push, but China held it off to take the first set 25-23. China spread out its scoring in the first with Zhu Ting and Li Yingying leading the way with five points and Wang Yuanyuan adding four, while most of Turkiye’s scoring came via Melissa Vargas, who led all scorers with 10.
The Turks answered with a fast start in the second set, scoring four of the first five points with two coming on aces. They kept the offense rolling throughout the set, holding a big lead for most of it, until China went on a 5-0 run to bring the set within a point at 22-21. All the good work Turikye had done on offense suddenly disappeared with unforced errors and poor defending, but the Turks were able to overcome and did not allow China to score the rest of the set. Hande Baladin joined Vargas in the scoring frenzy as she began to assert herself and raised her total to eight, while Vargas added five more to 15. Turkiye was a much-more efficient 14/30 in the second set, picking its spots to swing and converting more often than it did in the first set.
Turkiye showed its might in the third set as it simply overpowered China. The play that perfectly encapsulated their strength came with Turkiye up 21-20 after a late push from China. Turkiye blocked four straight China swings, then finally got control and fed Vargas for a monster kill to go up two. Vargas absolutely took over the match in the third set, doubling her total on the night to a ridiculous 30 points after just three sets. Turkiye went to her when it needed her most after China tied the set at 24, giving her country the lead with her 30th point of the match. The Turks won the set 26-24 and took full control of the match up 2-1.
China looked like a completely different team in the fourth as it scored seven of the first nine points and looked to be running away. The Chinese held two 10-point leads, the last of which was at 18-8. Suddenly, Turikye woke up and and went on an 11-3 run to get the set within two at 22-20. China was able to hold off the late surge behind Zhu and Li who both made huge plays down throughout the set to force the fifth. Li had 19 through four and Zhu added 18 as the pair willed their team to a decisive fifth set.
The fifth set turned out to be worthy of the tremendous match that preceded it. Both teams fired everything they had at each other in an extremely tight and tense set with barely anything separating them. In the end, Turkiye made just enough plays behind Vargas to come away with a 15-12 set win and make its way into the semifinals. The Turkish superstar had eight points in the final set, finishing with 42 on the night, a performance for the ages to get her team into the medal rounds.
This is Turkiye’s first semifinal appearance in its Olympics and it will await the winner of Italy and Serbia.
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