19/04/2019 21:00
Pool play in full swing at Sweden’s first World Tour event
2019 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Göteborg
Göteborg, Sweden, April 19, 2019. After the qualification round contested on Thursday, the first-ever FIVB World Tour event held on Swedish soil continued on Friday with pool play at the Beach Center in Göteborg, the world’s largest such indoor facility for Beach Volleyball. The competition will be reaching its climax on Sunday with the crowning of the eventual winners.
Lara Dykstra/Cassie House of USA were among those making it through pool play on Friday to continue their positive series as they have two straight World Tour gold medals to their name from events held earlier this month in Cambodia and Malaysia. However, they lost their first match in the Main Draw to Emi van Driel/Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands on Friday morning. In the following round, later in the afternoon, Dykstra and House played home stars Kristina Thurin/Susanna Thurin. The Swedish twins had the crowd on their side as they won the first set. The American duo were able to bounce back however and ended up with a win after succeeding in the two sets thereafter. Mixed results for the American team were still enough to continue their run in the knockout round on Saturday as they go for their third straight World Tour win.
Dutch teams Katja Stam/Julia Wouters and Emi van Driel/Raisa Schoon impressed with two straight wins each in the women’s pool play. Norwegian duo Ane Guro Tveit Hjortland/Victoria Faye Kjølberg as well as Greece’s Konstantina Tsopoulou/Dimitra Manavi had a similar record too.
To the crowd’s delight, Swedish men’s duos Ludvig Simonsson/Alexander Herrmann as well as Martin Appelgren/Alexander Annerstedt won their respective games in the first round of pool play. Pairs from Belarus, Japan, Russia, Latvia and Turkey also have put themselves in a good position for Saturday’s next round of pool play as they won their first matches as well. Swedish Youth Olympic gold medallists David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig faced Turkey’s Selcuk Sekerci/Safa Urlu in their first World Tour game on home soil and although the Swedish youngsters danced their way through the first set, Turkey were to bounce back and win 2-1.
On Saturday, the pool play will continue for the men, leading up to elimination games. The women will resume competition with the knockout round already. The first games will start at 9:00 local time as the men kick off with Belarus Aliaksandr Dziadkou/Pavel Piatrushka against Russia’s Vasilii Ivanov/Sergey Gorbenko as well as Swedish duo Linus Tholse/Viktor Jonsson against Russia’s Pavel Shustrov/Alexey Gusev.
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