New format awaits leaner All-Filipino tournament
The Premier Volleyball League opens its All-Filipino Conference on Jan. 31 at FilOil Playtime Centre in San Juan, launching the league’s flagship tournament with a trimmed but more balanced 10-team field.
The season-ending conference features a revised format aimed at keeping more teams in contention deeper into the tournament while rewarding consistency in the elimination round.
Under the new system, a team that sweeps the single round-robin eliminations earns an outright berth in the semifinals. If no team completes a sweep, the top four advance to knockout Qualifying Round matches, with the winners moving on.
The losing teams are not eliminated. Instead, they drop into a newly introduced Play-In stepladder, where teams ranked fifth to 10th remain in contention for the semifinals. The format is a first for the league.
Jan. 31 start
Team rankings throughout the eliminations and succeeding rounds will be determined using the FIVB (the international volleyball federation) Team Classification System, which factors in wins, set ratio and points ratio.
The semifinals will be played in a single round-robin format, with the top two teams advancing to a best-of-three Finals series at Araneta Coliseum. League organizer Sports Vision is targeting an April 28 conclusion.
Action begins on Jan. 31 with Galeries Tower facing Cignal at 4 p.m., followed by Akari against Choco Mucho at 6:30 p.m.
Play resumes on Feb. 3, also in San Juan, with Farm Fresh taking on Nxled at 4 p.m. and ZUS Coffee meeting Capital1 at 6:30 p.m.
Creamline opens its campaign on Feb. 5 against PLDT in a 6:30 p.m. matchup, following a 4 p.m. meeting between Choco Mucho and Cignal.
The league enters the conference with two fewer teams. Defending champion Petro Gazz is on leave, while Chery Tiggo has folded operations.
Nxled, bolstered by former Petro Gazz players, is expected to be among the most improved squads.
