04/06/2014 20:00
Two close sets help home heroes Lupo and Nicolai keep perfect record
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Cagliari, Italy, June 4, 2014. A very long day on Poetto beach came to an end on Wednesday late afternoon with a large crowd in attendance for the second match of home heroes Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo. The winners of this year’s Fuzhou Open and Shanghai Grand Slam cruised to their second victory in the tournament warding off a late comeback by their German opponents Finn Dittelbach and Eric Koreng. They were leading 20:17 in the second set before Dittelbach and Koreng scored three straight points to make it 20 all.
The match was nevertheless over only a couple of minutes later as the Italians cashed their fourth match ball to finish it off at 25-23, 22-20. Koreng even asked for a medical time-out by the score of 16:14 for the Italians in the second set but resumed play more motivated than ever providing the home duo with a very close and breath-taking finish.
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Italy’s Andrea Tomatis and Alex Ranghieri also have claimed their second victory in the tournament and still haven’t dropped a set in the Championship. After yesterday’s victory over Daan Spijkers and Michiel van Dorsten, the two Italians needed only 33 minutes to rout Austria’s Tobias Winter and Lorenz Petutschnig (21-17, 21-13). On Thursday they will play Austria’s top team, Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst, for the top position in Pool H. “I am happy with the result, and especially with the way we performed in the second set, where we were able to finish it off,” Ranghieri said. “It is very hot here and it was a bit difficult to adjust to the weather after last week we played at the Baden Masters in Austria and had to stand totally different conditions. I have to say that Poetto is a very nice location ideal for a Beach Volleyball tournament, so I invite as many fans as possible to come and cheer on us over the next days.”
Latvia’s top seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins, on the other hand, did not have an easy job at all in their second match of the tournament, where they started out strong cruising to a 21-11 set victory over Robert Kufa and Jan Hadrava of the Czech Republic, before their opponents stormed back strong to win the second set by 21-18. The tie-break that followed was another close race but the Latvians showed their class to bring it home at 15-10. Their next stop will be with Germany’s Sebastian Fuchs and Lars Flüggen who currently top the charts in Pool A following their straight-set victories over Kufa/Hadrava and Italy’s Matteo Cecchini and Matteo Martino (21-10, 21-16).
2013 European champions Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira were loudly cheered on by a couple of Spanish fans as they pulled out their second straight victory in the tournament, this time seeing off Latvia’s Janis Peda and Toms Smedins (21-16, 21-18). On Thursday they will have a much more demanding test playing Germany’s Alexander Walkenhorst and Stefan Windscheif who also have two victories on their account; on Wednesday they set the record for the shortest match of the day as they downed Francisco Marco/Christian Garcia in only 29 minutes with a terrific 21-15, 21-7.
2011 European silver medallists Kay Matysik and Jonathan Erdmann also have recorded two victories in a row after on Wednesday they saw off Austria’s Daniel Müllner and Jörg Wutzl by 25-23, 21-17. Their closest competitors in Pool E are Switzerland’s Philip Gabathuler and Mirco Gerson who on Wednesday played two close sets before edging past another team from Germany, Markus Böckermann and Mischa Urbatzka (23-21, 21-19).
Two more teams to watch out for also have an immaculate record in the tournament after completion of the second day of action on the white sand of Poetto beach. Russia’s Konstantin Semenov and Viacheslav Krasilnikov did not find much resistance in their match with Alexei Strasser and Sébastien Chevallier of Switzerland. The silver medallists from the FIVB Anapa Open stamped a 21-18, 21-9 win that leaves the Swiss guys still waiting for their first victory in the tournament. 2013 world champions Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen seem to find – slowly but surely – their form following Meeuwsen’s return after he had to sit out for nine weeks to nurse a tendonitis. The Dutchmen looked very strong in their match with Norway’s Oivind Hordvik and Morten Kvamsdal (21-10, 21-17) showing that though they have been together for a short time this year, they can’t be ruled out from the race for the podium.
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