2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup

The 2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup was the inaugural edition of the FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup, a new annual women's international volleyball tournament contested by six national teams that acts as a qualifier for the FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League.^[1][2][3] The tournament was held in Lima, Peru between 20 and 24 June.^[4]

2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup

Copa Challenger de Femenino Perú 2018
Tournament details
Host nation	Peru
City	Lima
Dates	20–24 June
Teams	6
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Champions	Bulgaria (1st title)
Runners-up	Colombia
Third place	Puerto Rico
Fourth place	Peru
Tournament statistics
Best scorer	Dayana Segovia (78 points)
Best spiker	Dayana Segovia (39.41%)
Best blocker	Hristina Ruseva (1.54 Avg)
Best server	Diana Dela Peña (0.43 Avg)
Best setter	María Marín (31.14 Avg)
Best digger	Esmeralda Sanchez (4.43 Avg)
Best receiver	Zhana Todorova (32.76%)
Official website
Volleyball Challenger Cup
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Bulgaria won the title, defeating Colombia in the final, and earned the right to participate in the 2019 Nations League replacing Argentina, the last placed challenger team after the 2018 edition.^[5] Puerto Rico defeated Peru in the third place match.^[5]

Qualification

Main article: 2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Challenger Cup qualification

Six teams will compete in the tournament.^[1]

Country	Confederation	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances			Previous best performance
				Total	First	Last
Australiaa	AVC	Asian qualifier 3rd place[6]	20 May 2018	0	None		None
Puerto Rico	NORCECA	North American qualifier champions[7]	20 May 2018	0	None		None
Colombiab	CSV	South American qualifier runner-up	27 May 2018	0	None		None
Peru	CSV	Host country	15 June 2018	0	None		None
Bulgaria	CEV	2018 Golden League champions[8]	17 June 2018	0	None		None
Hungary	CEV	2018 Golden League runner-up[8]	17 June 2018	0	None		None

Note

^a Australia replaced Kazakhstan, the Asian qualifier winners, who withdrew from the tournament.^[9]

^b Originally, a CSV representative was to face a team from Africa in a playoff for a spot in the Challenger Cup. According to the Chilean Volleyball Federation (FEVOCHI), however, FIVB fined the African Volleyball Confederation for not hosting any kind of qualifier event.^[10]

Pools composition

Teams were seeded following the Serpentine system according to their FIVB World Ranking as of August 2017.^[11] FIVB reserved the right to seed the hosts as head of Pool A regardless of the World Ranking. Rankings are shown in brackets except hosts who ranked 26th.

Pool A	Pool B
Peru (Host)	Puerto Rico (13)
Colombia (28)	Bulgaria (17)
Hungary (30)	Australia (42)

Venue

All matches
Lima, Peru
Coliseo Eduardo Dibos
Capacity: 4,600

Preliminary round

• Venue: Coliseo Eduardo Dibos, Lima, Peru
• All times are Peru Time (UTC-05:00).

Pool A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Colombia	2	2	0	6	6	0	MAX	151	87	1.736	Final round
2	Peru	2	1	1	3	3	3	1.000	126	127	0.992
3	Hungary	2	0	2	0	0	6	0.000	90	153	0.588

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
20 Jun	19:00	Peru	0–3	Colombia	24–26	12–25	12–25			48–76	Report
21 Jun	19:00	Colombia	3–0	Hungary	25–13	25–19	25–7			75–39	Report
22 Jun	19:00	Hungary	0–3	Peru	14–25	11–25	26–28			51–78	Report

Pool B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	Pts	SW	SL	SR	SPW	SPL	SPR	Qualification
1	Bulgaria	2	2	0	6	6	0	MAX	150	92	1.630	Final round
2	Puerto Rico	2	1	1	3	3	3	1.000	125	119	1.050
3	Australia	2	0	2	0	0	6	0.000	86	150	0.573

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
20 Jun	17:00	Bulgaria	3–0	Australia	25–11	25–16	25–15			75–42	P2 Report
21 Jun	17:00	Puerto Rico	3–0	Australia	25–10	25–19	25–15			75–44	Report
22 Jun	17:00	Bulgaria	3–0	Puerto Rico	25–18	25–18	25–14			75–50	Report

Final round

	Semifinals				Final
	23 June – Lima
	Colombia	3
					24 June – Lima
	Puerto Rico	1
					Colombia	1
	23 June – Lima
					Bulgaria	3
	Bulgaria	3
	Peru	0
					3rd place match
					24 June – Lima
					Puerto Rico	3
					Peru	2

Semifinals

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
23 June	16:00	Colombia	3–1	Puerto Rico	23–25	27–25	25–10	25–18		100–78	Report
23 June	18:00	Bulgaria	3–0	Peru	25–21	25–22	25–18			75–61	Report

3rd place match

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
24 June	17:00	Puerto Rico	3–2	Peru	22–25	25–15	21–25	25–17	16–14	109–96	Report

Final

Date	Time		Score		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5	Total	Report
24 June	19:00	Colombia	1–3	Bulgaria	25–22	19–25	20–25	23–25		87–97	Report

Final standing

Rank Team  Bulgaria  Colombia  Puerto Rico 4  Peru 5  Australia  Hungary Qualified for the 2019 Nations League Source: VCC 2018 final standing

2018 Women's Challenger Cup champions  Bulgaria 1st title 14–woman Roster Gergana Dimitrova, Nasya Dimitrova, Kristiana Petrova, Veselina Grigorova, Lora Kitipova, Petya Barakova, Monika Krasteva, Mira Todorova, Hristina Ruseva (c), Mariya Karakasheva, Zhana Todorova, Borislava Saykova, Silvana Chausheva, Aleksandra Milanova Head coach Ivan Petkov

See also

• 2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League
• 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Challenger Cup