Italy triumph with the trophy at the 33rd edition of the Montreux Volley Masters
Lausanne, Switzerland, September 11, 2018 – Italy announced their roster of 14 players who will represent the country at the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship from September 29 through October 20 in Japan.
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Shortly after his team won the prestigious Montreux Volley Masters tournament in Italy, coach Davide Mazzanti presented his picks: setters Carlotta Cambi and Ofelia Malinov, opposites Paola Egonu and Serena Ortolani, outside hitters Elena Pietrini, Lucia Bosetti, Miriam Sylla and Sylvia Nwakalor, middle blockers Anna Danesi, Cristina Chirichella (captain), Marina Lubian and Sarah Fahr, and liberos Beatrice Parrocchiale and Monica De Gennaro.
"My choices were based on what I saw in the last tournaments,” Mazzanti said. “It's a group that will allow me to find more solutions, depending on how the matches will go. The selected 14 athletes should allow me to have many options available and a good degree of adaptability to the different situations in which we will find ourselves. Recently, some physical problems forced us to be very careful in managing the squad, so I could not always count on the whole team, but I believe that we have now achieved a good shape. It is a young group, able to change the course of the game."
Later this week, Italy will entertain the Netherlands, another medal candidate at Japan 2018, in three pre-World Championship friendlies – on September 14 and 15 in Costa Volpino and on September 16 in Bergamo.
“This will be another useful opportunity to find our rhythm,” Mazzanti commented. “Looking at previous tournaments, we have seen how the team has grown in importance. I am not just talking about results, but above all gamewise. We have not been disheartened by the negative performance at the Gloria Cup, just as we are not going to get cocky over our victory at Montreux. We know the things to work on and improve. In Switzerland we made progress both in serving and in the block-defence phase, while we can still make a qualitative leap in terms of counterattack.”