2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League

The 2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League was the inaugural edition of the FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League, a new annual international women's volleyball tournament contested by 16 national teams that replaced the former World Grand Prix in the international calendar. The competition was held between May and July 2018, and the final round took place in the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre, Nanjing, China.

Six-time World Grand Prix winners, United States won the inaugural edition, defeating Turkey in five sets on the final. This was Turkey's first ever final on a senior world-level premier competition (World Championship, World Cup, Summer Olympic Games and the aforementioned Grand Prix). Reigning Olympic champions and host nation, China defeated 12-time Grand Prix champions Brazil in straight sets for the bronze medal. Michelle Bartsch-Hackley from USA was elected the MVP.

Argentina was the last placed challenger team after the preliminary round and will be replaced by Challenger Cup winners Bulgaria in the 2019 edition.

Qualification
Sixteen teams qualified for the competition. Twelve of them qualified as core teams which cannot face relegation. Other four teams were selected as challenger teams which could be relegated from the tournament.

Preliminary round
The 16 teams compete in a round-robin format with every core team hosting a pool at least once. The teams are divided into 4 pools of 4 teams at each week and compete five weeks long, with a total of 120 matches. The top five teams after the league round join the hosts of the final round to compete in the final round. The relegation takes in consideration only the 4 challenger teams and the last ranked challenger team will be excluded from the 2019 Nations League. The winners of the Challenger Cup will qualify for the next edition as a challenger team.

Final round
The six qualified teams play in 2 pools of 3 teams in round-robin. The top 2 teams of each pool qualify for the semifinals. The pool winners play against the runners-up in this round. The semifinals winners advance to compete for the Nations League title. The losers face in the third place match.

Pools composition
The overview of pools was released on February 16, 2018.

Venues
The list of host cities and venues was announced on February 16, 2018.

Pool standing procedure

 * 1) Total number of victories (matches won, matched lost)
 * 2) In the event of a tie, the following first tiebreaker will apply: The teams will be ranked by the most point gained per match as follows:
 * 3) *Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 points for the winner, 0 points for the loser
 * 4) *Match won 3–2: 2 points for the winner, 1 point for the loser
 * 5) *Match forfeited: 3 points for the winner, 0 points (0–25, 0–25, 0–25) for the loser
 * 6) If teams are still tied after examining the number of victories and points gained, then the FIVB will examine the results in order to break the tie in the following order:
 * 7) *Set quotient: if two or more teams are tied on the number of points gained, they will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of the number of all set won by the number of all sets lost.
 * 8) *Points quotient: if the tie persists based on the set quotient, the teams will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of all points scored by the total of points lost during all sets.
 * 9) *If the tie persists based on the point quotient, the tie will be broken based on the team that won the match of the Round Robin Phase between the tied teams. When the tie in point quotient is between three or more teams, these teams ranked taking into consideration only the matches involving the teams in question.

Squads
The 16 national teams involved in the tournament were required to register a squad of 21 players, which every week's 14-player roster must be selected from. Each country must declare its 14-player roster two days before the start of each week's round-robin competition.

Ranking


Pool 1

 * All times are Yekaterinburg Time (UTC+05:00).

Pool 2

 * All times are China Standard Time (UTC+08:00).

Pool 3

 * All times are Central Summer Time (UTC-05:00).

Pool 4

 * All times are Brasília time (UTC−03:00).

Pool 5

 * All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+09:00).

Pool 6

 * All times are Korea Standard Time (UTC+09:00).

Pool 7

 * All times are Macau Standard Time (UTC+08:00).

Pool 8

 * All times are Further-eastern European Time (UTC+03:00).

Pool 9

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 10

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 11

 * All times are Indochina Time (UTC+07:00).

Pool 12

 * All times are Hong Kong Time (UTC+08:00).

Pool 13

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 14

 * All times are China Standard Time (UTC+08:00).

Pool 15

 * All times are Indochina Time (UTC+07:00).

Pool 16

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 17

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 18

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 19

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool 20

 * All times are Argentina Standard Time (UTC-03:00).

Final round

 * Venue: Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, Nanjing, China
 * All times are China Standard Time (UTC+08:00).

Final four
 

Final standing
Source: VNL 2018 final standings

Awards

 * Most valuable player
 * 🇺🇸 Michelle Bartsch-Hackley (USA)
 * Best setter
 * 🇹🇷 Cansu Özbay (TUR)
 * Best Outside Hitters
 * 🇺🇸 Michelle Bartsch-Hackley (USA)
 * 🇨🇳 Zhu Ting (CHN)
 * Best Middle Blockers
 * 🇺🇸 TeTori Dixon (USA)
 * 🇹🇷 Eda Erdem Dündar (TUR)
 * Best Opposite
 * 🇧🇷 Tandara Caixeta (BRA)
 * Best libero
 * 🇧🇷 Suelen Pinto (BRA)