Viktoria Orsi Toth (born 14 August 1990) is an Italian beach volleyball player who plays as a right-side blocker. With partner Marta Menegatti, she achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 7 in June 2016. Her career highlights include two gold, three silver and two bronze medals on the FIVB World Tour.
Born in Hungary, her family moved to Italy when Orsi Toth was five. She began her sporting career playing indoor volleyball for various clubs, including two seasons in the Serie A1. As a member of the Italy women's national under-20 team, she won the 2008 Junior European Volleyball Championship. Orsi Toth competed in her first international beach volleyball event in 2010 and quit indoor volleyball the following year to focus solely on the beach game.
Orsi Toth debuted on the World Tour in 2011. For the next two and a half seasons, she was mostly partnered with Laura Giombini and struggled to qualify for main draws. Her breakthrough came mid-2013 when she teamed up with Menegatti. The pair medalled on the World Tour five times over the next three years, including their first World Tour title in 2015. They qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics but Orsi Toth was suspended right before the tournament for a doping violation, for which she has maintained her innocence. After serving a two-year ban, she returned to international competition in July 2018, resuming her partnership with Menegatti.
Early and personal life Orsi Toth was born on 14 August 1990 in Budapest, Hungary. Her parents were both athletes; her father, Laszlo, was a decathlete who represented Hungary in international events, while her mother, Agnese, played basketball for the Hungary national team and in Italy's Serie A. They both later became physical education teachers. Orsi Toth has two siblings: her brother, Lorenzo, was a track and field athlete who ran the 800 metres; her younger sister, Reka, was a silver medalist at the 2017 European U20 Beach Volleyball Championships, and has played NCAA Division I indoor volleyball for the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (2018) and beach volleyball for the Loyola Marymount Lions ().
Orsi Toth was five when her parents moved the family to Italy for their careers, eventually settling down in Santeramo in Colle. Growing up, Orsi Toth played various sports including swimming, ballet and taekwondo. She had originally aspired to take after her father and become a heptathlete. However, she detested running and lacked access to track and field training facilities. She took up indoor volleyball instead as many of her friends were already playing it, even though her parents were initially against their daughter playing volleyball as Hungary does not have a strong tradition in the sport. Up until the 2005–06 season, she played in the youth ranks of a local sports club, Santeramo Sport, alongside Immacolata Sirressi. Orsi Toth credits Sirressi with making her become attracted to indoor volleyball, and the two later became teammates on the Italy women's national under-18 and under-20 teams, as well as in the Serie A1 club Tena Volley Santeramo.
Orsi Toth is a naturalized Italian citizen. Although she grew up in Italy, she still converses in Hungarian with her parents. She has been a member of the Centro Sportivo Aeronautica Militare since September 2015 with the current rank of Airman First Class (). Off the court, Orsi Toth has described herself as shy.
Indoor career Club Orsi Toth began her sporting career playing indoor volleyball in the outside/opposite hitter position. She advanced from the youth leagues when she was selected to the Italian Volleyball Federation's (FIPAV) Club Italia in the 2006–07 season. The club played in the Serie B1 at the time, the third division of the Italian volleyball league system.
In the summer of 2007, she signed with Lines Ecocapitanata Altamura in the Serie A1, the top division of the league system. As the second-youngest player in the league, Orsi Toth made her debut in October as a substitute in the third set of her club's three-set loss against Unicom Starker Kerakoll Sassuolo. Altamura finished 9th out of the 12 Serie A1 clubs in the 2007–08 regular season, just missing out on advancing to the eight-team championship playoffs. They also took part in the Italian Cup, a volleyball competition involving the Serie A1 and A2 clubs, and were eliminated in the second round. Over the course of the season, Orsi Toth played in 12 matches (19 sets) and recorded a hitting percentage of 0.23, slightly below her team's average of 0.27.
After one season with Altamura, Orsi Toth left to join another Serie A1 team, Tena Volley Santeramo. Santeramo ended the 2008–09 regular season ranked 12th out of the 14 teams and thus managed to stay just ahead of the relegation cutoff. They were knocked out of the Serie A1 Italian Cup by Foppapedretti Bergamo in the second round. Orsi Toth played in 24 matches (82 sets) for Santeramo in total, posting a hitting percentage of 0.15, which was well below her team's average of 0.27.
After two seasons in the top division, Orsi Toth signed a deal in 2009 to play for Professionecasa Valenzano in the Serie B1. She transferred to another Serie B1 side, Asti Volley, the following year.
International Orsi Toth was named to the 14-man national under-18 team roster for the 2007 Girls' Youth European Volleyball Championship. Italy won the bronze medal, following a loss to Serbia in the semifinals and a victory against Belgium in the bronze-medal match."Girls – Youth European Championships 2007: Final Round in Brno (CZE) 10–15/04/2007". European Volleyball Confederation. Retrieved 6 February 2019. Select Semi Final 1–4. Select Classification 3/4. Orsi Toth went on to represent her country again at the 2007 U18 World Championship. Italy finished 12th out of the 16 teams in the tournament, with Orsi Toth posting a 0.315 kill percentage (32nd out of 179 players) and averaging 0.31 blocks per set (52nd out of 168 players). The following year, Orsi Toth was called up to the 12-man national under-20 squad for the 2008 Women's Junior European Volleyball Championship. Italy faced Russia in the finals, beating them in three straight sets to win the tournament. Orsi Toth played in the championship match as a substitute in the second set but did not score any points.
Beach career 2010: Transition to beach
Orsi Toth was not selected to the indoor national team in 2010, and so she began exploring other options. In March, she accepted an offer to try out beach volleyball for a few months with the beach national team. Her transition to beach volleyball was not smooth, and at first, Orsi Toth did not like the sport and felt that she had no future in it. She noted that, for her, the taxing sport "had turned into some kind of a daily torture." She persevered nonetheless, taking it as a personal challenge to push herself beyond her comfort zone.
She made her international beach volleyball debut in June, teaming up with Marta Menegatti at the 2010 Beach Volleyball World University Championships in Alanya, Turkey; they finished in ninth place. The duo went on to compete at the U21 World Championships that September, claiming the silver medal following a three-set loss to the American team of Tara Roenicke and Summer Ross in the finals.
2011–2012: World Tour debut By May 2011, Orsi Toth had quit indoor volleyball to focus solely on the beach game. She joined the women's national team headed by Lissandro Carvalho, who she credits with convincing her to make the switch. In June, she partnered with Giada Benazzi to compete in her first World Championships at the 2011 edition held in Rome. The duo received a wild card into the main draw where they were seeded 48th; they did not win any of their group stage matches and finished tied for 37th. Orsi Toth was also paired with Laura Giombini two months later at the 2011 Summer Universiade in Shenzhen, China, where they finished seventh. She made her FIVB World Tour debut playing with Giombini at the $190K Hague Open in August, but did not progress past the qualifying rounds. At the $190K Phuket Open in November, Orsi Toth and Giombini beat Jamie Broder and Kristina May of Canada, as well as Andrezza Martins and Cristine Santanna of Georgia in the qualifiers to advance to Orsi Toth's first main draw on the World Tour. They lost their first two matches in the main draw and did not progress further. Orsi Toth concluded her first season on the World Tour ranked 89 in the world with Giombini.
Orsi Toth and Giombini did not make it out of the qualifiers in five of the six World Tour events they entered in 2012. They were given a wild card into the main draw of the $300K Rome Grand Slam in June as the No. 32 seeds. Despite losing two of their three group stage matches, the pair advanced to the knockout rounds following a forfeit by Canada's Heather Bansley and Elizabeth Maloney, but were defeated in the first round by their fifth-seeded compatriots Greta Cicolari and Marta Menegatti. At the end of the month, Orsi Toth and Giombini were one of two teams—the other being Daniela Gioria and Giulia Momoli—to represent Italy at the FIVB World Cup Olympic Qualification Tournament. Italy advanced to the final country match-up where they lost against the Netherlands, and thus did not win one of the remaining qualification spots for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Orsi Toth and Giombini ended the year 59th in the world rankings.
2013: Partnering with Menegatti The start of the 2013 season saw Orsi Toth competing at the $220K Corrientes Grand Slam with Cicolari, followed by the $220K Rome Grand Slam with Benazzi; she did not make it out of the group stage in either tournament. Her breakthrough came midway through 2013, when the national team coach decided to separate Cicolari and Menegatti—the top Italian women's team at the time—and paired Menegatti with Orsi Toth instead. The new pairing entered the $220K Long Beach Grand Slam in July where they did not win any of their group stage matches and exited the tournament tied for 25th. Orsi Toth and Menegatti's results improved after Long Beach, with fourth-place finishes at the $220K Moscow and São Paulo Grand Slams. Having only played five international events as a team, they wrapped up their first season together ranked No. 44 in the world.
2014–2015: First World Tour title At the beginning of 2014, Carvalho abruptly left the national team programme and his coaching duties were handed over to Paulo "Paulao" Moreira Da Costa. Orsi Toth and Menegatti had a slow start to the season, failing to reach the podium in their first ten World Tour events. They were further setback and forced to skip a tournament when Orsi Toth sprained her ankle mid-season. The duo finally earned their first World Tour medal as a team—after 15 previous attempts—at the $400K São Paulo Grand Slam in September. Seeded 11th, they upset the second-seeded Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross of the United States in the quarterfinals, followed by the ninth-seeded Madelein Meppelink and Marleen van Iersel of the Netherlands in the semifinals. In the finals against Brazil's seven-seeded Larissa França and Talita Antunes, Orsi Toth and Menegatti were unable to capitalise on several match points, eventually losing with a score of 21–18, 21–23, 19–21. The pair also took part in the European Championships, finishing fifth with a three-set loss to Meppelink and van Iersel in the quarterfinals. Overall, it was a season of "near-misses" which saw them lose a number of key tiebreaker sets. At the end of 2014, they were ranked tenth in the world.