CAZOVA qualifiers for 2018 Women's World Championship resume in Cayman Islands

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, November 11, 2016 – The first round of the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship Qualification Tournament for Carribean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) will resume with the action in Group C on Saturday.

The Bahamas, Bonaire, Guadeloupe and hosts Cayman Islands will compete in the two-day Round Robin tournament, where the top two finishers will advance to the second round in July.

Cayman Islands will have the home court advantage, but they are at the bottom of the ladder in this competition with a CAZOVA ranking of No.12. 

 

Bonaire are only ranked one place higher as Guadeloupe and Bahamas are ranked fifth and sixth, respectively, are the favourites to advance to the next round.

 

The first round began with Group A action in St. Croix last August, when Barbados, ranked third in CAZOVA and the highest of 12 teams in the three groups, failed to advance to the next round, as ninth-ranked players from Curacao won all three matches to qualify along with the eighth-ranked hosts United States Virgin Islands. 

The action in the third and final group, Group B, will take place on November 26 and 27 in Aruba, with teams from Suriname, Haiti, Aruba and Martinique will vie for the two available spots in the second round.

 

Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, ranked first and second, respectively, have received byes into the second round and will each host half of the six qualifiers in July.

 

The two group winners, along with the final two teams standing in the Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association Zone and the Central American Zone, will then compete alongside top-ranked NORCECA teams Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Puerto Rico. 

 

The top six finishers from this competition will qualify for the next Women's World Championship in Japan.

 

The United States received an automatic berth after winning the previous edition in 2014 in Italy.