World Grand Prix 2011

    Quote from joanamss

    FIVB Heroes lauches campain in Grand Prix -




    Is it Yunli Xu first on the left side?

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    The fact that Cardullo fractured her hand and came back to play the rest of a tough 5-set match is incredible. She is an absolute warrior and following the injury you didn't even notice it affecting her play. Hope she can make a quick recovery! What a terrible match for Logan Tom. She was completely out of rhythm in attacking and jump serving the entire match and really gave up a lot of free points to Italy. Had it not been for her strong service reception she should have been replaced. The USA middle blockers, which are generally a strength to the team, didn't play large roles defensively or offensively. Anzanello had a fantastic match offensively and I am glad to see her back with the Italian NT. It'll be very interesting to see who starts for Italy when they have Arrighetti, Barazza, Guiggi, and Anzanello available. Gioli showed for the first time that she can be an effective OPP. She's still not stable in the position, especially attacking out of the back row, but she does such a fantastic job of tooling the outside blocker and hitting the wrist away line shot off the slide. Move her back to the middle PLEASE!! Destinee Hooker had a tremendous offensive performance. She is contacting the point at such a high point and creating angles that are quite simply indefensible. Her serve is also much improved. Backrow defense still needs a lot of work, but she's improved with every match and in a year's time I can see her becoming a better defender. Italy's back court defense and serve reception was fantastic.


    Congrats to both Serbia and Thailand. It's great for the sport to have multiple teams really contending for titles and jostling for positioning. Thailand's rise really adds depth to the competition in Asia. Serbia is also proving that their European League win was no fluke and that they have the goods to make a run. I have to admit that I've had my doubts about Brakocevic as well but she seems to be performing more consistently. Russia is in a tough position. As the defending World Champs the expectations were very high for their performance here but without Kosheleva, Perepelkina(what is her status right now??), Solokova and Kryuchkova it's a very different, for the worse, Russian team. Startseva is also not having the best of tournaments. I still expect them to beat China and advance to the semis but I don't think their level of play is worthy of the title. But then again with Russia you can never count them out.


    Brazil was my pick for the title but after losing Mari and now Paula Pequeno I think Serbia and the USA definitely have a shot. Fernanda Garay is playing a fantastic final round but we'll have to see if Natalia can regain her form after quite some time off. Brazil needs to use Thaisa and Fabiana as much as offensively possible. Sheilla is going to have to step up as well but she always does.

    Who is the Chinese girl? as far as I know, There should be Wang in the picture. Did she have a plastic surgery? Who is that?

    Quote from TheUSAFAN

    Anzanello had a fantastic match offensively and I am glad to see her back with the Italian NT. It'll be very interesting to see who starts for Italy when they have Arrighetti, Barazza, Guiggi, and Anzanello available. Gioli showed for the first time that she can be an effective OPP. She's still not stable in the position, especially attacking out of the back row, but she does such a fantastic job of tooling the outside blocker and hitting the wrist away line shot off the slide. Move her back to the middle PLEASE!!


    Agree with you, Barbolini has in team too much middle-blockers. Gioli, Anzanello, Guiggi, Arrighetti, Crisanti, Garzaro, even Barazza (although she is just after giving birth). First four of them is enough, converting Gioli into OPP in my opinion is a big mistake, although her today performance was good. Centoni and Aguero are needed for this team. Ultimately Barbolini can convert other player, but not Gioli. Bosetti can also play OPP, but she's too short. He can try Costagrande, Quaranta, Di Iulio, Okaka, some from juniors (Biccheri, Diouf, Caterina Bosetti) or other middles (Crisanti, Garzaro, there are much younger than Gioli).


    Quote from TheUSAFAN

    Russia is in a tough position. As the defending World Champs the expectations were very high for their performance here but without Kosheleva, Perepelkina(what is her status right now??), Solokova and Kryuchkova it's a very different, for the worse, Russian team. Startseva is also not having the best of tournaments.


    Sokolova just isn't in NT this year. Kryuchkova and Kosheleva are injured. Perepelkina is with team in Makau, but not in good shape after injury. Russian team certainly doesn't play its best, just remind today match. Gamova is used too much so her efficiency is much lower. Goncharova helps her a lot, but without one more strong spiker like Kosheleva they weren't so good as they can be.

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    Edited once, last by kondzio ().

    from now on berg will be careful with her sets to hooker and might see her wearing protective gearfrom now on or maybe she'll make a excuse so glass will do the setting now..hehe

    i believe it is just a matter of who the fans want to watch.maybe they have a contract that how matter how worse tom logan and piccinini plays.they shouldnt be remove on court coz the macau spectators and fans wont like it.. who agrees?

    Sad to see Italian girls so dismotivated. :(


    I hope they work very hard till ECH, cause they definetly (even this team itself that was there, even not being the final roster) can play soooooo much better then what they showed in thsi final round.

    Quote from joanamss

    Sad to see Italian girls so dismotivated.


    Wish I would this to be only a problem of motivation.... :sos:
    Against JPN, as against USA, Italians proved unable to step up in the topic moments of the match, so keeping the opponent down. It happened yesterday in set 4th, and today in set 2 (from 22-15 to 23-25 !!! :wall: ).
    Anzanello performed quite good against Usa, yet against Jap was almost inconsistent (also because of superb setting of Takeshita...); Gioli as an OPP still fails to convince me...
    Piccinini and Barcellini rather weak, perhaps they may suffer the coming of Costagrande into NT.


    Two months of experiments ended up in a whole serie of underperformances (Montreux- University Games- Grand Prix) , in growing doubts about the reliability (as a whole) of the "old Guard" and in feeling less confident about the "younger" who should integrate and reinforce the main team.


    Should Barbolini succeed in solving all those doubts and present to ECH a strong and winning team, I would consider this his greatest achievement ever .... Let's hope..
    :wavy: