Yuki Ishikawa – Sir’s high-flying power striker

The CEV Champions League may be a European competition with European club teams participating, but their team rosters feature highest-level international stars from all over the world. Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia’s Yuki Ishikawa is one of them. Even more, judging by the nearly two million followers of his Instagram account, he is probably one of the most popular stars set to compete at the 2025 Final Four event in Lodz, Poland taking place next week, from May 16 to 18.

The 29-year-old Japanese outside hitter is finishing up his first season with the Italian club from Perugia and he is hoping to end it by lifting the Champions League trophy next Sunday. It would be his first success of such a high caliber. So far, as a player of Sir, Yuki Ishikawa has picked up a Supercoppa Italiana trophy, garnished with an individual Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, and an Italian SuperLega bronze.

But it would not be his first continental trophy in Europe. Four years ago, with his previous Italian club Allianz Powervolley Milan, Ishikawa celebrated a CEV Challenge Cup victory. Last season, before he left Allianz to transfer to Sir, the 1.92m-tall high-flying striker also helped his team earn a historic bronze in the Italian SuperLega, thanks to which they competed in this season’s Champions League for the first time in the club’s history.

He has been playing professionally in Italy almost without interruption since he was only about 18 years old and fresh out of high school in Japan, and his club career has taken him through several Italian teams - Parmareggio Modena, Top Volley Latina, Emma Villas Siena, Kioene Padova Padua, Allianz Milan and Sir Sicoma Monini Perugia. With his first club from Modena, young Yuki won the Italian national cup and it was under the guidance of coach Angelo Lorenzetti, who is currently coaching him at Sir too.

Ishikawa has already reached a truly iconic status in Japanese volleyball. While successfully passing through the youth and junior national teams, he has been a member of the senior men’s national team since 2014, when they earned Asian Games silver. Since 2022 Ishikawa has been serving as the captain of the squad. With his high jumps, striking power both in offense and from the serving line, and charismatic leadership skills, he has been truly instrumental to Japan’s recent rise in international volleyball.

Ishikawa inspired Japan in their qualification for Paris 2024, his second Olympics, after the home-based Tokyo 2020 Games. Twice they made it to the Volleyball Nations League podium – with bronze in 2023 and silver in 2024 – and collected a number of Asian Championship medals, including the continental crowns in 2017 and in 2023. Currently, the team captained by Ishikawa is number six in the FIVB World Ranking.

Both Asian titles were also accompanied by MVP honors for the Japanese standout, two of many individual awards he has earned throughout his career so far, including three Dream Team nominations at world-level events – two in the VNL and one at the 2019 FIVB World Cup.

Born into the family of a sprinter and a basketballer, Ishikawa has sports encoded in his DNA. Both of his sisters are also volleyball players. The younger one, Mayu Ishikawa, is also one of the brightest stars on the Japanese women’s national team and she is also pursuing a club career in Italy as a member of Igor Gorgonzola Novara.