Rome, Italy, September 23, 2014 - Italy dominates Tunisia in its first match of this home FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship Italy 2014 edition and claims a 3-0 victory. (25-11,25-13,25-8).
The first day closing match saw the host team finally play after a long wait, facing Tunisia, in a crowded PalaLottomatica.
The sole world championship meeting between these teams came back in 1978, a 3-0 win for Italy.
Cristina Chirichella was the top scorer of the match with 12 points.
Key Facts- Tunisia makes their third appeareance in the World Championship.- The first set lasted only 18 minutes- 10,000 people audience give the welcome to their national team- Italy are looking to become the first hosts to win the world title since Japan in 1967. They are already the last team to win the tournament on their home continent as they claimed the 2002 title in Germany.Italy deservedly won the game quickly, so tomorrow can play quite rested the evening match with Croatia. Tunisia will face Dominican Republic.
Italy in the first set had a sprint start scoring a 8-3 partial to go to the first technical timeout. Nadia Centoni scored 6 points with the 67% efficiency and her performance, with Antonella Del Core’s one were the basis for Italy’s victory. The second one came at the impressive score of 16-5 for the home team. The new entered Valentina Diouf claimed the set for Italy at 25-11 in a eighteen minutes set.
The second set starts immediately with Antonella Del Core’s ace taking a three points lead. Tunisia seems more focused into the match and managed to stay close to Marco Bonitta’s team. It was again Antonella Del Core who scored two points in a row that gave Italy a break at 12-9. A long rally warms the audience and thanks to an excellent defensive touch of Del Core, Italy increased the gap up to seven points. Tunisia’s coach Mohamed Messelmani called his second time out at 18-11. At this moment Bonitta decided to try the double substitution with Noemi Signorile and Diouf in. Italian middle blockers outclassed opponents in spiking, well served by their setter. Carolina Costagrande was also into the match for Del Core, because Bonitta wanted each atheletes to feel the court. The set ended at 25-13.
In the third set Italy didn’t miss its focus and kept showing a good block- defense correlation, so Italy could give the court also to Caterina Bosetti and Raphaela Folie, so all the team is fully into the competition. The new entered athletes positively answer to the court and audience’s call. Tunisia had no weapons to fight Itlay’s strenght so the Italian flag could wave into the PalaLottomatica. To Cristina Chirichella the honor to score the last point of the match, fixing the score at 25-8.