15/08/2015 23:16
Two teams from Germany plus Swiss and Russian tandems make semis at Timisoara Satellite
2015 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Timisoara
Timisoara, Romania, August 15, 2015. The inaugural CEV Satellite taking place this week in Romania’s third-largest city, Timisoara, continued on Saturday with another round of matches which eventually determined the composition of the semis. Two German teams are still in the race, including Teresa Mersmann/Isabel Schneider who are vying for their third gold medal on the European circuit this summer after they already won the tournaments held in Molodechno, Belarus, and Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Their compatriots Katarina Schillerwein and Cinja Tillmann, who had started the competition already on Wednesday in the country quota, also made the semis as did also Baku 2015 European Games gold medal winners Nina Betschart/Nicole Eiholzer of Switzerland and Russia’s Olga Motrich/Nadezhda Makroguzova.
Two teams from Romania were still in contention for home glory but their quest for success did not produce the desired result. Beatrice Galit/Andreea-Maria Barsasteanu lost in straight sets (12-21, 11-21) to Spain’s Ester Ribera Boter and Amaranta Fernandez Navarro already in the morning session and with this they had to be content with ninth place. Romania’s second tandem, Adriana Melniciuc and Adelina Budai-Ungureanu had the upper hand in their dramatic matchup with Israel’s Yael Yellin and Jennifer Guz (26-24, 21-23, 15-13) but they eventually lost in the next round to the top seeds of the tournament, Germany’s Sandra Seyfferth and Anni Schumacher (18-21, 7-21).
“We lost the first set to 18 and there we did stick to our game plan. Unfortunately the second set went a lot worse and we did not communicate enough. They have a lot more experience than us and this made the difference in the end,” said Adriana Melniciuc who last year received the CEV Fair Play Award together with former partner Ioana-Alexandra Ordean following their act of sportsmanship in a Continental Cup fixture with Belarus.
A German derby highlighted the evening session with Mersmann/Schneider claiming a hard-fought 2:1 win (16-21, 21-13, 15-8) over Schumacher and Seyfferth to move on to the semis and play there Swiss rising stars Betschart/Eiholzer. “We lost the first set because we were not focussed enough,” Mersmann said. “However, after that we played really good in defence and we put a lot of pressure with our service.”
All matches of the CEV Satellite tournament being held in Timisoara are streamed live and for free at LAOLA1.tv
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