The Dominican Republic senior volleyball team (ranked 10th by FIVB) showed the depth of its training when it was able to go the distance and defeat both Bulgaria (16th) and Netherlands (13th) in five sets. The game on 1 June ended with a 2-3 win on 1 June 2023 with scores against Bulgaria of 25-22, 16-25, 25-16, 14-25 and 11-15. The DR bested the Netherlands on 2 June 3-2, with scores of 25-18, 22-25, 25-18, 21-25 and 15-11.
The DR lost to Japan 3-1 on 30 May 2023, with scores of 25-23, 25-18, 22-25 and 25-15. The DR also lost to Brazil 3-1 on 3 June, scoring 27-25, 20-25, 25-21 and 27-25.
Of the 16 teams participating in the tournament, the DR is now ranked 8th at the end of the first round-robin phase, behind Poland (8th), Brazil (1st), Turkey (6th), Japan (7th), China (3rd), Germany (12th) and the United States (2nd).
The DR next plays top-ranked Poland on 13 June in Hong Kong, China and Italy (5th) on 15 June, Canada (15th) on 17 June, Turkey on 18 June.
Then the Queens of the Caribbean travel to Sumon, Korea, to play Germany on 27 June, Korea (ranked 26th) on 29 June, China on 30 June, and Serbia (4th) on 30 June.
The semi finals start 12 July in Arlington, USA. The quarter finals start 16 July.
Each team is scheduled to play 12 matches over the 3-week Preliminary Phase, against equally strong opponents – against three teams ranked from 1st to 4th, three teams ranked from 5th to 8th, three teams ranked 9th to 12th and three teams ranked from 13th to 16th.
The DR is considered as one of the five challenger teams. The other challenger teams are Canada, Croatia (30th), Bulgaria and Poland.
The 11 core teams to beat are Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Serbia, Thailand (14th), Turkey and USA.
Read more:
Volleyball World
DR defeats Holland in Volleyball League of Nations
DR defeats Bulgaria in VNL
El Nuevo Diario
5 June 2023