12/09/2014 20:38
Three top teams make women’s semis at Baku Masters
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Baku Masters
Baku, Azerbaijan, September 12, 2014. On Friday three teams claimed their spot in the semis of the Baku Masters – fifth and last stop of this year’s CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship – and a fourth will follow early on Saturday morning as the last quarter-final match on schedule was postponed due to darkness. The competition will come to a close on Saturday with the semis and final matches; the eventual winners as well as the runners-up of the competition held on the shores of the Caspian Sea will claim a ticket for their respective countries to participate in the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship.
The programme on Friday started with the last round of matches on schedule for pool play where all teams tried to perform their best in order to by-pass the first stage of the knock-out phase. The actions were blessed with sun and mild weather with a real party atmosphere spreading around there at Heyat Rest Area right from the early hours. The most exciting match was played in Pool B where Rimke Braakman and Jantine van der Vlist of the Netherlands completed a clean sweep of their games coming back strong after losing the first set to edge Italy’s Daniela Gioria and Laura Giombini 19-21, 21-19, 15-10. “We started the tournament from the qualification round but so far everything has been going really well for us,” said the Dutchwomen after their winning performance. “Our opponents were strong but we showed a good performance. We have won our pool and now we want to continue the same way in order to make the podium.”
Unfortunately their dreams of glory did not come true as they lost in the quarter-finals to Monika Brzostek and Kinga Kolosinska in straight sets (11-21, 17-21). The two players from Poland will take on Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude in the semis as the winners of the CEV Biel/Bienne Masters held in early August won a dramatic match with Russia’s Ekaterina Syrtseva and Maria Prokopieva (19-21, 21-19, 16-14) that lasted for 50 minutes. There was nevertheless something to celebrate for the Russian team in Baku as Evgenia Ukolova and former European champion Alexandra Moiseeva routed Italy’s Marta Menegatti and Viktoria Orsi Toth to be promoted to the semis (21-17, 21-15). They will play there the winners of the German derby featuring Laura Ludwig/Anni Schumacher and Victoria Bieneck/Julia Grossner. “We are very pleased with our qualification for the semis,” Ukolova and Moiseeva said. “Our opponents were strong but we got the upper hand. We will be trying to win also tomorrow, it does not matter who we will get to play, as we came here and always play only for the victory.”
Azerbaijan got something to cheer about as well as Zinaida Liubymova and Vivian Da Canceicao Cunha made it through the prelims following their victory over Sweden’s Camilla Nilsson and Tadva Yoken from Thursday but then lost in the first round of the elimination phase to Brzostek and Kolosinska of Poland (16-21, 15-21).
The other home team, Iuliia Karimova and Raquel Ferreira, lost all of their matches in Pool A including the last one they played on Friday with Russia’s Ukolova/Moiseeva. “It was our first participation in an international competition of this calibre,” they said. “There are many strong teams here and even though we did everything we could in order to win, we failed, probably also because we felt the responsibility and pressure from playing before the home crowd,” Karimova added. “The result is difficult to accept because we wanted to perform well and give our fans something to cheer about. It is a pity that we could not achieve the goal we had set for this tournament.”
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