Reale Mutua Fenera CHIERI are the CEV Challenge Cup champions

The women's CEV Challenge Cup has new champions – Reale Mutua Fenera CHIERI!

The 2023 edition of this competition reached its climax on Wednesday night, with the return match of the finals featuring Romanian C.S.M. LUGOJ and Italian CHIERI. In the end, CHIERI has taken 0-3 victory (21-25, 21-25, 18-25).

All in all, CHIERI were the heavy favorites following their 3-0 victory in the previous matchup in Italy (25-15, 28-26, 25-17) and they’ve managed to double the advantage and secure the title.

LUGOJ started off confidently in the first set since they knew that they need to win this in order to take the trophy in their hands. With 7-3 in the beginning they showed great fightness and continued that way. But it didn't take much time for CHIERI to take the initiative into their own hands and with a couple of "easy" points they took the lead (from 9-7 to 9-16). Even though LUGOJ managed to get pretty close by the end of the set, that didn't scare CHIERI and they closed the set by 21-25.

The second set started off pretty equally on both sides and continued like that until the middle of it. CHIERI managed to get three points of advantage and kept it up until the end of the set which ended by 21-25.

It was very clear that CHIERI has won the title but they still needed to play at least one more set. And they started their last set with style (1-5) and the advantage only kept on growing (11-16 and 14-20). They closed the set by 21-25 and the celebration could begin because they won the #CEVChallengeCup title!