30/11/2018 20:35
Home heroes upset top seeds in Ljubljana
2018 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Ljubljana Winter
Ljubljana, Slovenia, November 30, 2018. The start of the Main Draw at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 1-Star Satellite tournament in Ljubljana coincided with losses for the top seeded teams, i.e. Aliaksandr Dziadkou and Pavel Piatrushka of Belarus and Ukraine's Diana Lunina and Maryna Samoday. These two teams will be looking to make amends for their early setbacks when they take to the court again on Saturday.
The crowd in Ljubljana deserved a very warm welcome to former European champion and three-time Olympian Vasiliki Arvaniti from Greece, who decided that Slovenia’s capital would be a perfect place for her comeback after two years off the Beach Volleyball courts. The start was perfect, as she and partner Panagiota Karagkouni recorded two wins and already reached the Top 8 of the event. “It was a tough day for us, but winning two games out of two after two and a half years being off the courts is really nice. Ukraine played really well, but in the crucial moments, we were more decisive. It was extremely tough and we enjoyed fighting for every ball. We want to play every game like this. Since we do not know any of the other teams, we can focus only on our game and try to improve match by match. It is a very nice competition, it is the first time for me to play an indoor tournament and I really enjoy it. The atmosphere is nice, it is a very nice stadium, I am impressed,” Arvaniti said after a win over first-seeded Lunina/Samoday.
Two-time European champion Vasiliki Arvaniti and partner Panagiota Karagkouni claimed two wins in as many matches on Friday in Ljubljana.
Home favourites Ana Skarlovnik and Nina Lovšin, the fifth-seeded team of the tournament, justified their role by winning both of their matches, the first one against Poland’s Kinga Legieta and Aneta Kaczmarek. “It was not an easy victory; this is our first tournament as a team and only our fourth match together. We did not have much time to play together before this tournament, so we are very happy for this win. After the first match against Slovenia, who played really well and did not make any mistakes while we made many, we played a lot better in the second match. For the playoff matches we just want to have a lot of fun on the court, to be happy, execute our tactics and hopefully get to the semi-finals,” said the Polish team after regrouping to record a victory in their second match of the day versus Lynne Beattie and Melissa Coutts of Scotland.
Italy’s Jessica Allegretti and Jessica Jenifer Luca and Lithuania’s Vytene Vitkauskaite and Urte Andriukaityte managed to avoid Round of 12 matches by winning two times each on Friday.
Former Slovenia’s indoor national team member Vid Jakopin and his teammate Jure Peter Bedrač (pictured above), a two-time Slovenian Beach Volleyball champion, upset top-seeded Aliaksandr Dziadkou and Pavel Piatrushka right at the beginning of the men’s competition. The Belarusians could not pass the block of a phenomenal Jakopin, who received standing ovations several times during the match. “We do not want to focus on some specific technical elements or even tactics. We just want to be consistent in our game, make as little mistakes as possible and try to win more matches. I am satisfied with today’s performance. The Belarussians were attacking really strong, but our blocking was what decided the match,” commented the 30-year-old player from Slovenska Bistrica, who had to quit Volleyball due to injuries several years ago, but his lasting passion towards this beautiful sport is bringing him back to the court from time to time.
Paul Burnett and Maximilian Guehrer have travelled a long way to compete in Ljubljana
Australia’s Paul Burnett and Maximilian Guehrer are one of the teams who were most familiar with the conditions in Sports Park Ludus. They accepted the invitation by Slovenian teams and tried out the sand in Črnuče already several days ahead of the tournament. “We already came over to train indoors as we do not have any indoor facilities at home. It took 28 hours and a half to get here. The amount of tournaments we can play on is not a whole lot, so we decided to come this far. We are basically taking advantage of every option we get, so we could adjust to indoor game and then next year start really hitting the ground, running and making sure that even if we have to fly two days before the event, we are always ready to go,” Guehrer explained.
Danijel Pokeršnik/Gašper Plahutnik were one of their sparring partners in Ljubljana and also one of the teams which started the tournament with a win, the same as Poland’s Kacper Kujawiak and Mateusz Paszkowski, Latvia’s Matiss Gabdullins and Mihails Samoilovs, Germany’s Robin Sowa and Eric Stadie, Czech Republic’s Jindrich Weiss and Martin Tichy and Turkey’s Selcuk Sekerci and Safa Urlu.
Men’s teams will be back on sand on Saturday early morning, while the women’s competition will resume at 12 p.m.
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