Turkish women's volleyball team starts Nations League campaign

Turkey's national women's volleyball team will kick off its FIVB Volleyball Nations League campaign in Ankara Tuesday.

Host Turkey will take on Italy in the first round clash, while Thailand will face Bulgaria earlier in the day.

The first-week clashes, with 16 teams divided into two groups, will be held simultaneously in the Turkish capital Ankara and Shreveport, Lousiana, U.S.

In the other first week ties in Ankara, Turkey will host China, Belgium, Thailand the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Serbia.

The matches will be held at Ankara Sports Hall until Sunday, June 5.

In Shreveport, the host side U.S. will battle it out with Germany, Brazil, Poland, Japan, South Korea, Dominican Republic and Canada.

The 16 teams compete in a round-robin tournament, with every core team hosting a pool at least once.

The teams are divided into four pools of four teams in each week and compete over five weeks, with a total of 120 matches.

The top five teams after the round-robin tournament will join the hosts in the final round.

The relegations, on the other hand, will consider the four challenger teams and the last ranked challenger team will be excluded from the next edition.

The winners of the Challenger Cup would qualify for the next edition as a challenger team.

This year's finals will be held in Ankara between July 13 and July 17.

Turkey Squad:
Cansu Özbay, Elif Şahin, Sıla Caliskan, Ebrar Karakurt, Meryem Boz, Ceren Kapucu, Hande Baladin, Tuğba Şenoğlu, Derya Cebecioğlu, Meliha İsmailoğlu, Saliha Şahin, İlkin Aydın, Eda Erdem Dündar, Zehra Güneş, Beyza Arıcı, Bahar Akbay, Simge Aköz, Ayça Aykaç and Aylin Acar.