The national women's volleyball team will not be seeing action when the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Invitational Conference semifinal round resumes on Monday, 8 August at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

According to Sports Vision chief Ricky Palou, the Nationals made a last-minute withdrawal after they failed to secure the green light from Mariano See Diet – their team manager at National University.

Palou said See Diet expressed concerns about the possibility of getting injured due to the high level of competition in the country's lone professional women's league.

With that, the PVL was reduced to only five teams with Creamline, PLDT Home Fibr, Cignal, Army, and guest team KingWhale of Chinese Taipei vying for the crown.

KingWhale will open the hostilities when it battles Army at 2:30 p.m. while Creamline shoots for its third straight win when it collides with Cignal in the 5:30 p.m. main battle.

"That's what the national team told us — they're not joining," said Palou in a phone conversation with Daily Tribune.

"We'll just have to make do with five teams in the semifinals."

Another source said some of the NU players are still nursing minor injuries so skipping the PVL will allow them to recuperate in preparation for the AVC Asian Cup from 21 to 29 August at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.

"The national team was only told yesterday that they will join the PVL. When the NU management learned about this, they asked the players if they wanted to join and they declined," a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

"The players aren't ready to play in the PVL at the moment. Even the coaches admitted that the players begged off to focus on the AVC."