Siófok, Hungary, July 14, 2017. The Main Draw of the historic CEV Satellite Siófok started on Friday with four teams per gender progressing to the third round and the losers from the early matches contesting their second game of the day in the losers’ bracket.
Switzerland’s qualifiers Gabriel Kissling and Adrian Heidrich caused another sensation in the opening round of the Main Draw as they beat third-seeded Daniel Bergerud and Svein Oddmund Solhaug of Norway 2-0 (23-21, 21-17). Later in the day, the Scandinavians lost in two sets their following match to Slovenia’s Nejc Zemljak and Jan Pokersnik and as a result, they have to leave the tournament with a disappointing 13th place finish.
Playing under much better weather conditions than on Thursday, the teams fought for a spot in Round 3. Top-seeded Jake Sheaf and Chris Gregory of England first beat Hungary’s Balazs Benko/Botond Olah in two sets but ended up losing their next match to Austria’s Florian Schnetzer and Daniel Müllner, so they will have to fight their way back through the losers’ bracket. Next to Schnetzer/Müllner, Martin Ermacora and Moritz Pristauz also made it to Round 3 for Austria with two consecutive wins. Ukraine’s Mykola Babich/Iaroslav Gordieiev and Germany’s Lorenz Schümann and Alexander Walkenhorst achieved that same feat.
The highlight of the women’s competition was the match between Sweden’s Tadva Yoken/Sigrid Simonsson and France’s Alexia Richard/Margaux Carrere, with the latter ones emerging victorious 25-23 at the tiebreak. After that, the French team beat also top-seeded Monika Povilaityte and Ieva Dumbauskaite of Lithuania to progress straight to Round 3. The multiple medallists from European and World age group Championships from Vilnius are still alive in the competition as later in the day they beat Slovakia’s Andrea Strbova and Natalia Dubovcova in the losers’ bracket. Next to Richard/Carrere, teams in Round 3 are Sweden’s second-seeded Kristina and Susanna Thurin, Ukrainian twins Inna and Iryna Makhno and Ilke Meertens/Annemieke Driessen of the Netherlands.
Teams from Hungary were not successful and all of them had to leave the competition. Hungary’s hopes will now rely on the young boys and girls set to compete later this weekend in one of eight tournaments on schedule for the qualifying stage of the 2017-2018 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup.
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