Baden, Austria, June 23, 2017. Friday was the busiest day of the week at the Strandbad in Baden – and it featured highs and lows for the home teams representing Austria, who put up a fight in all of their matches but most of the times had to accept a setback before the enthusiastic home crowd.
After they almost caused a sensation in their matchup with top-seeded Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs in the morning session, Florian Schnetzer and Daniel Müllner ended up losing a real drama once they took to the court in the afternoon to play Norway’s rising Beach Volleyball stars Mathias Berntsen and Christian Sandlie Sørum. The match lasted for 49 minutes and it reached its climax in a thrilling tiebreak, where Schnetzer and Müllner had match balls they could not cash – before Berntsen/Sørum eventually emerged victorious 18-21, 21-15, 19-17. The fact that they could cope with the pressure resulting from such tense end of the game confirms once again how strong the BeachVolley Vikings are – also from a mental standpoint. On Saturday, Berntsen and Sørum will take on Samoilovs/Smedins and measure themselves up with one of the world’s top teams in a much-anticipated clash on court no. 2.
Robin Seidl and Tobias Winter had to accept a similar destiny compared to their compatriots Müllner and Schnetzer – as they lost both of their matches on Friday and they are virtually eliminated from the tournament. Seidl and Winter fought to the best of their abilities but eventually lost to Spain’s 2013 European champions Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira 1-2 (21-18, 15-21, 10-15) in another match where they were not the favourites – as much as they were the underdogs earlier in the day when playing Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Piotr Kantor.
Austria’s no. 2 team in the men’s competition, Thomas Kunert and Christoph Dressler lost in two sets to Germany’s Lorenz Schümann and Julius Thole (21-23, 19-21). On Saturday they will have a mountain to climb in order to stay alive in the tournament as they play Russia’s Nikita Liamin and Viacheslav Krasilnikov, i.e. the second seed of the Baden Masters and the current leaders of the ‘points race’ on the FIVB World Tour. As for Schümann and Thole, the Germans confirmed their good form after on Thursday they eliminated the newly crowned U22 European champions, Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Artem Yarzutkin of Russia, in the last round of qualifications.
As a result, Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst are due to carry the home hopes of success this weekend – even more after they delivered an extremely solid performance in their matchup with Germany’s Jonathan Erdmann and Armin Dollinger on Friday morning.
Pool play finished in the women’s competition with eight teams – the top two from each group – progressing to the quarterfinals. The eventual winners of the Baden Masters will emerge late on Saturday after three rounds of play and Austria will not be in the mix in this fight for the top honours. The home teams lost all of their matches on Friday – Teresa Strauss/Bianca Zass, Lena Plesiutschnig/Cornelia Rimser as well as Stefanie Schwaiger/Katharina Schützenhöfer ended up last in their respective pools.
Top-seeded Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude of Germany claimed the top spot in Pool A after their Russian opponent Evgenia Ukolova had to withdraw from the match determining who would take first place in the group. Ukolova sustained a shoulder injury and could not continue playing – and the nature of the injury will most likely prevent her from resuming the competition on Saturday. Other pool winners were Kristyna Kolocova/Michala Kvapilova of the Czech Republic, Nina Betschart/Tanja Hüberli of Switzerland and Russia’s Ekaterina Birlova and Nadezda Makroguzova.
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