Jurmala, Latvia, August 18, 2017. The men’s competition at the 2017 #EuroBeachVolley Final in Jurmala resumed on Friday morning with the first round of the elimination phase – and this produced a series of breakthrough wins by a number of lower-seeded teams. The Latvian fans had something to celebrate as well since 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Martins Plavins and partner Haralds Regza stormed to a 22-20, 21-17 victory over Maciej Rudol and Jakub Szalankiewicz of Poland to get the right to challenge the heavily favourite Russians Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Friday’s programme started with another Latvian team taking to the sand – as Edgars Tocs and Rihards Finsters played Switzerland’s Nico Beeler and Marco Krattiger. Tocs and Finsters quite surprisingly won an incredibly close first set (22-20) before the Swiss found their rhythm, thus putting on a show in the second set (21-12). Beeler and Krattiger seemed to have things under control in the all-deciding tiebreak as well, but the Latvians fought back before eventually falling short of completing their comeback (15-13). “The Latvians played really well in the first set and this explains why it was such a close fight,” Krattiger said. “We have now made it to the top 10 of this tournament but we are definitely hungry for more,” he continued. Their next match will be against Poland’s Michal Bryl and Grzegorz Fijalek, one of those teams who swept all of their games in the pool stage.
The first elimination round produced some unexpected results – with 2013 European champions Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain losing in two sets (21-23, 17-21) to Austria’s Robin Seidl and Tobias Winter. France’s Maxime Thiercy/Romain Di Giantommaso were responsible for another breakthrough win as they beat the higher-seeded Poles Mariusz Prudel/Kacper Kujawiak 2-1 (21-19, 12-21, 15-9). As a result, Poland ‘only’ have two teams still alive in the competition – next to pool winners Fijalek/Bryl, Bartosz Losiak/Piotr Kantor are still vying for top honours following their 21-17, 21-15 victory in their matchup with Austria’s Thomas Kunert and Christoph Dressler.
England’s Jake Sheaf and Chris Gregory have much to regret since they claimed a huge early lead in their matchup with Germany’s Alexander Walkenhorst/Sebastian Fuchs – and failed to capitalise on a number of set points before eventually losing the first set 23-25. Sheaf and Gregory did not seem able to recover from this setback and their opponents finally sealed a 2-0 victory to move on to the next round. Sheaf and Gregory were chasing a historic top ten finish for England – but overall their performance in Jurmala bodes well on the way to next year’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia where Beach Volleyball will be making its debut on the programme. Check out the video below to know more about Jake and Chris and how they found their way to Beach Volleyball:
Next to Walkenhorst/Fuchs, Germany have another team still ‘alive’ in the competition – with Lorenz Schümann/Julius Thole now set to challenge Italy’s Alex Ranghieri/Adrian Carambula for a spot in the quarterfinals. Earlier this season, Schümann/Thole won bronze at the Baden Masters – and Schümann has another two medals to his credit from the European Tour since he took bronze and gold at the Satellite events held in Kharkiv, Ukraine and Siofok, Hungary – a feat he achieved together with Walkenhorst.
“We played one and a half sets very solidly,” Thole commented after their victory over Slovenia’s Nejc Zemljak and Jan Pokeršnik. “We probably realised we had made a step forward on our way to the next round and after that failed to put enough pressure; luckily, we regrouped in the tiebreak and our overall performance paid off in the end. I have never played against the Italians and only know Carambula’s skyballs from videos I have seen online, so I very much look forward to the next match,” added the 2014 U18 European champion.
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