Original title: Women’s Volleyball Super League explores the way forward
Workers’ Daily—China Industry Net reporter Liu Bing
Recently, the final of the 2022-2023 Chinese Women’s Volleyball Super League ended in Shangrao, Jiangxi Province. The Tianjin team successfully defended the title with a total score of 2-0 in the three-match two-win final and won the 15th league championship in team history.
The league kicked off in Changzhou, Jiangsu on November 10 last year and lasted for nearly two months. With many national women’s volleyball players such as Li Yingying, Wang Yuanyuan, Yao Di and Wang Yizhu, as well as strong foreign aid Vargas, the Tianjin women’s volleyball team still shows strong dominance in the league.
In the first stage of the round-robin match, the Tianjin team defeated the remaining 13 teams and maintained a complete victory. In the subsequent group qualifying and knockout rounds, the Tianjin Women’s Volleyball Team became more and more courageous, and finally won the championship with a record of 22 victories.
Judging from the final top 8 rankings of the league, the competitive landscape has changed to some extent, but the traditional order has not been completely changed. The only thing that is a little surprising is the Jiangsu Women’s Volleyball Team, which only finished 6th (the worst record in the past 7 years). The lack of success in the team, and the fact that Zhang Changning, Gong Xiangyu and other national players did not participate in the competition are the direct reasons for the decline in the team’s performance.
Thanks to the abolition of the restriction on the number of foreign players in this volleyball Super League, many teams have introduced multiple foreign players, but in the end it was the two teams from Tianjin and Shanghai that only introduced one foreign player each.
Both Chen Boya and Zhang Shiqi of the Tianjin Women’s Volleyball Team represented the team in the main league for the first time, and both performed well. Although there is still room for improvement in the first pass, Chen Boya’s changeable offensive methods and calm and stable performance made fans have more expectations. In the absence of Yuan Xinyue, Zhang Shiqi and Wang Yuanyuan jointly supported the team’s secondary offensive line, showing an independent temperament.
The Shanghai women’s volleyball team is led by players such as Zhong Hui, Wang Weiyi and Gao Yi, supplemented by a group of young players, setting off a “youth storm” in the league this season. Although there are not many national players, the tactical quality and teamwork displayed by the whole team are impressive. Especially in the semi-final contest, facing the Shenzhen women’s volleyball team with more foreign aid, the young players of the Shanghai team showed strong offensive strength and won the game cleanly.
In this league, Zhuang Yushan from Fujian, Wu Mengjie from Jiangsu, Wang Yifan from Guangdong, and Miao Yiwen from Sichuan are impressive. In terms of support, Wang Yindi of the Shanghai team and Zhou Yetong of the Jiangsu team played well. In terms of setters, Xu Xiaoting of the Shanghai team performed outstandingly. In terms of free agents, Sichuan team Yang Yuning’s various technical statistics are at the top of the list.
Among the above-mentioned players, Wang Yifan and Wang Yindi are only 17 years old and have great potential. Wu Mengjie, Wang Yifan, Miao Yiwen and other players, although they have been selected for the national team in the past, are not completely newcomers, but they were in a relatively marginal position in the national team before. This time, they once once more proved themselves with stable performance, which is beneficial to the national team personnel orderly competition.
Since the introduction of the home and away game system in 1996, the Chinese Volleyball League has developed for more than 20 years. There are obvious gaps in influence, commercialization, and operation.
In January last year, the reform of the volleyball league became the central topic of the National Volleyball Work Conference. Industry insiders believe that although the Women’s Volleyball Super League is not perfect this season, it is still actively exploring and reforming. “Only by strengthening the top-level design and constantly summarizing the experience of reform, and incorporating all kinds of materials, can the level of the league be improved, and the Volleyball Super League will be built into a high-level league with international influence as soon as possible.”
