The Cuban volleyball player Melissa Vargas, who now competes under the Turkish flag, maintains a lethal step in her first foray into the League of Nations (VNL), immersed a few days ago in her second week of the branch. female.
Vargas leads all the players in the tournament in serves (12 aces) and ranks fifth among the top scorers (133 points) and in attack (113 cards), two aspects in which no other exponent from Turkey has managed to include himself. among the best. As if that were not enough, of the women with at least 150 shooting opportunities, the Cuban ranks second in effectiveness (53.81%), only surpassed by the Chinese Yingying Li (55.21%).
If in the first week of the competition the woman from Cienfuegos impressed thousands of fans in Antalya, now she has left her mark in the Hong Kong Coliseum of the Asian city, where the “Sultanas of the network” compete along with the Dominican Republic, Poland, Canada , Italy, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and China.
Cuban volleyball player Melissa Vargas begins her reign with Türkiye
In her first match this week, Melissa only came on as a substitute in the 3-0 victory (31-29, 25-21 and 25-15) of the Turks over the Dutch. Despite her short time on court, the Cuban scored 9 cards (7 in attack, 1 in blocking and 1 with serve) and gave the lead to Ebrar Karakurt, who scored 13 points.
For the second match against Poland, Vargas started and became practically the only offensive variant of the Ottoman team led by the prestigious Italian coach Daniele Santarelli. The Cuban got 24 of Turkey’s 70 points, 21 of them with spikes, 2 with serves and 1 in blocking. However, she could not prevent the defeat in 3 sets (25-22, 25-20 and 30-28).
In the third challenge, the Turks resumed their triumphant path by sweeping Canada 3-0 (25-15, 25-22 and 25-20), with 17 points from Melissa, who again billed with her shots (14 points), in defending from the net (1) and from the service line (2).
Turkey only has one game left against the Dominican Republic in this second week of the VNL, in which they are in fourth position with 16 units, 5 wins and 2 losses. The table is led by China (17/6-0) and Poland (17/6-1), followed by the United States (15/6-0).
Melissa Vargas is the only Cuban representative in the 2013 VNL and the first woman from the island to compete in the event founded in 2018. So far, the Antillean team has not been even close to qualifying for any of the 5 editions of the fight
