NANJING, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Reigning champions the United States rallied from one set down to beat Poland 3-1 in the opener of the FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League (VNL) finals here on Wednesday afternoon.
The American women outpowered their Polish peers 21-25, 25-16, 25-15 and 26-24 in one hour and 46 minutes.
Opposite spiker Andrea Drews scored the match-high 23 points for the United States, with wing spikers Kelsey Robinson and Michelle Bartsch-Hackley adding 19 and 13 points respectively. Malwina Smarzek contributed the most for Poland by scoring 22 points from 68 attempts, while opposite spiker Magdalena Stysiak was the only other Polish who had double-digit number with 13 points from 51 attempts.
Haleigh Washington had seven blocks from 19 attempts for the United States who also recorded seven aces against two for Poland in serves.
Later in the evening, the hosts who field in a second-string team, will take on 2018 runners-up Turkey.
The six-team finals play in a round-robin format, with best two teams in each group advancing to the semifinals slated for Saturday.
Poland are the new comers to the VNL six-team finals after both Serbia and the Netherlands opted to reserve their best players for the Olympic qualifiers in August and the World Cup in September. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in sight, many teams take VNL, previously known as FIVB Grand Prix until 2018, as the best training ground to tune up for their teamwork.
