2006 World Championship held in Japan. 24 teams split by 4 pools (A to D) and then combined two pools (AD & BC) played by round-robin. Each combined pool top 2 rank go semi-final played against another pool. Teams included (well-known only):
Pool A : Japan, Poland, Korea, Chinese Taipei
Pool B : Russia, China, Germany, Dominican
Pool C : Brazil, USA, Netherlands
Pool D : Serbia and Montenegro, Italy, Cuba, Turkey
Best Players (Top 3 only) :
Scorers : #17 Darnel Neslihan (TUR), #15 Grün Angelina (GER), #1 Wang Yimei (CHN)
Spikers : #12 Calderon Diaz Rosir (CUB) 60%, #5 Shashkova Lioubov (RUS) 57%, #3 Carrillo De La Paz Nancy (CUB) 56%
Blockers : #11 Fürst Christiane (GER), #1 Oliveira Walewska (BRA), #11 Gamova Ekaterina
Servers : #6 Godina Elena (RUS), #1 Wang Yimei (CHN), #3 Yang Hao (CHN)
Diggers : #10 Szu Hui Fang (TPE), #2 Kayalar Gulden (TUR), #17 Cardullo Paola (ITA)
Setters : #3 Takeshita Yoshie (JPN), #2 Feng Kun (CHN), #14 Agca Elif (TUR)
Receivers : #12 Carvalho Jaqueline (BRA), #7 Zhou Suhong (CHN), #5 Shashkova Lioubov (RUS)
Libero : #9 Kryuchkova Svetlana (RUS), #4 Tzscherlich Kerstin (GER), #18 Cebic Suzana (SCG)
MVP : #3 Takeshita Yoshie (JPN)
Post-Match Commentary :
Both team lost to Chinese Taipei unexpectedly in this pool. Poland #7 Ginka didn't in the squad in this tournament. #1 Skowrońska (23yo, 1.89m) the key player & #14 Liktoras (31yo, 1.91m) experienced player remained in the team. But #1 unable to score and just played for 2 sets. #6 Anna Podolec (21yo, 1.93m) replaced #7 and became the scorer of the team. 25 points with 46% (21/46) attack success rate. #5 Miyuki Takahashi (28yo, 1.7m) was back to the team and played as opposite hitter. Middle position #11 Erika Araki (22yo, 1.86m) firstly became the starting lineup player. #12 Kimura Saori (20yo, 1.82m) played as outside hitter in this game. #3 Yoshie Takeshita (28yo, 1.59m) still the leader of the team. A new Chinese-Japanese player #14 Shuka Oyama (26yo, 1.8m) with good performance in World Grand Prix and #2 Kana Oyama (22yo, 1.87m) wasn't include in this tournament. Coach use #7 in match vs Chinese Taipei and used #9 Sachiko Sugiyama (27yo, 1.84m) in rest of tournament. This match was very close. Nippon 5 attackers all with double digit scores. Nippon no key players by that time and divided the attacks to different spikers was the only way to win. #5, #12 scored 19 & 17 points respectively. Two middles scored 14 & 16 points. #14 got 15 points.