July 21, 2026.- The 2026 Women’s Volleyball Nations League (VNL) reaches its decisive stage this week with the Finals, set to take place from Wednesday through Sunday in Macao, China. Eight teams will battle in the quarterfinals, three will earn a place on the podium, but only one will be crowned the 2026 VNL champion.
The first two quarterfinal matches will be played on Wednesday, July 22, with the remaining two scheduled for Thursday. The semifinals will take place on Saturday, followed by the medal matches on Sunday.
Action gets underway on Wednesday at 16:00 local time (08:00 UTC) with Italy taking on the Netherlands. Brazil and Japan will face off in the second quarterfinal of the day.
Thursday’s quarterfinal program will open at 16:00 with a duel between Turkiye and Canada
Turkiye won the VNL in 2023. They also have one silver and one bronze in their VNL showcase. They are silver medalists of last year’s World Championship and semifinalists of the Paris 2024 Olympics, currently standing fourth in the World Ranking. The European team qualified for the Finals in Macao as the fourth-place holders in the Preliminary phase table, on 9-3 and 25.
Canada registered a historic achievement by progressing to the VNL Finals for the first time, after taking fifth place in the first stage of the tournament on 8-4 and 24, with their opposite Kiera Van Ryk emerging as the best scorer of the Preliminary Phase. In the World Ranking, Canada take 11th place.
Turkiye swept the last four encounters with Canada in straight sets, most recently at the 2025 World Championship. Canada’s last and only win over Turkiye in the past 15 years was achieved in their VNL 2022 game.
The quarterfinal round will conclude with a match between USA and China, set to serve off at 19:30 on Thursday
The Americans topped the Preliminary Phase table on 10-2 and 29, and are aiming at their fourth VNL podium and first since 2021. All of USA’s previous three medals were gold, from the first three editions of the competition. At the last Olympic Games in Paris, they finished runners-up and took silver. Now, they are number three in the World Ranking.
China qualified for the Finals automatically as the host team. They took ninth place in the first stage on 6-6 and 19. The Asian team has picked up three VNL medals in history – two bronzes and, most recently, a silver in 2023. They are running seventh in the World Ranking.
The United States and China have previously met 80 times at major world-level competitions. China have won 45 of those matches, including the most recent four, three of them after five-set battles. USA’s last win over China occurred in VNL 2022.
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