FIVB announced the dual hosting in January 2019. The Netherlands and Poland would share the nineteenth Women's Volleyball World Championship, the first time the event had ever been spread across two host nations. Twenty-four national teams were drawn into four pools of six. Pool A played in Arnhem and Gdansk; Pool B in Lodz; Pool C and D in Polish venues including Katowice. Pool play sprawled across both countries from 23 September. The second round consolidated into Apeldoorn in the Netherlands and Gliwice in Poland, and the knockout rounds settled into Apeldoorn's Omnisport arena for the European leg. The football-stadium-sized GLIWICE Arena handled the Polish side. The whole tournament moved across borders in a way that mirrored the sport's growing internationalism.

On 1 March 2022, one week after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, FIVB ruled Russia and Belarus ineligible to compete in international and continental events. Russia had qualified automatically and was expected to be a medal contender. The decision pulled them out entirely. Croatia, the next eligible team in the world rankings, was invited in their place. The brackets were redrawn. The competition the tournament had been planning for, with Russia as a fixture in the upper half of the seedings, was no longer the competition it would actually be. The volleyball world had to plan and replan in real time, while a war ground on a few hundred kilometers east.

Serbia did not look like the tournament favorite on paper. Italy and Brazil had longer recent winning streaks, and the United States, defending Olympic silver medalists, were ranked higher in some metrics. But the Serbian squad that arrived in the Netherlands had the same core that had won in 2018: Bošković at opposite, Maja Ognjenović running the offense from setter, Brankica Mihajlović and Bianka Buša on the outside. They moved through the pools without losing a set in their first four matches. They beat the United States in the semifinal in straight sets. In the final, against a Brazilian side that included the legendary Gabi Guimarães and had eliminated Italy in the semifinal, Serbia again won in straight sets. The match took about ninety minutes. The result was a second consecutive world title.

Bošković finished the tournament with the MVP award for the second time, joining a small group of players who have won the award at consecutive World Championships. Born in Trebinje in 1997, she had been a senior international since seventeen and had been one of the most consistent attackers in world volleyball since her early twenties. Italy's Paola Egonu was named best opposite for the tournament, but on a team distinction that the MVP voters disagreed with: Bošković took the headline trophy. Italy beat the USA in straight sets in the bronze medal match. The All-Tournament team, scattered across Serbia, Italy, Brazil, and the United States, reflected a sport whose top talent is now distributed across roughly five continents.

From a low-altitude pass over the eastern Netherlands, the venues are easy to pick out. Apeldoorn's Omnisport arena sits in the city's eastern edge among neat suburban grids. GelreDome in Arnhem, with its retractable roof, is more obviously a football stadium temporarily repurposed for volleyball. Across the German plain to the east, Gliwice's arena anchors the Polish leg in industrial Upper Silesia. The 2022 tournament threaded these venues together over four weeks. The flags came down, the floors went back to hockey and football, and Serbia took their second consecutive trophy home to Belgrade. Bošković added a second gold medal to the collection she had begun in Yokohama. Sometimes a sport quietly settles its hierarchy in straight sets.