02/09/2016 18:44
Dressler/Kunert recall Continental Cup joy, set sights on home World Champs
2016 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Jurmala Masters
Jurmala, Latvia, September 2, 2016. On Friday afternoon Thomas Kunert and Christoph Dressler probably felt like they were re-watching a familiar movie when playing Tom van Walle and Dries Koekelkoren of Belgium in pool play of the CEV Jurmala Masters. They ended up losing the game in two sets but regrouped in the best way to win their third and last match in the group stage, thus securing their progression to the elimination phase of the tournament.
Kunert and Dressler are members of the Austrian team that last June won the 2014-2016 CEV Continental Cup in Stavanger, Norway and with this secured a quota spot to the Rio 2016 Olympics. Austria played Belgium in the ‘grand finale’ of the competition – where Kunert and Dressler put on a fight before losing in three sets to Koekelkoren/van Walle. Shortly after this setback, their countrymen Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl won the all-deciding ‘golden set’ against the same Belgian pair and with it secured their ticket to Rio.
On that rainy Sunday up in Norway it was remarkable to see how Kunert and Dressler were happy for their compatriots – even though with their performance Huber and Seidl kind of prevented them from crowning the Olympic dream. “We spent a few weeks together preparing for the Continental Cup Final,” Kunert recalls, “and our coaching staff organised also some team-building activities especially in order to develop the right team spirit within the group. As we travelled to Norway the decision about who would take the eventual Olympic spot was still quite open but as the tournament progressed, Huber and Seidl claimed the most important wins and so they deserved the right to be at the Olympics.”
When it comes to the development of a true team spirit, the Continental Cup is something truly unique, the friendly and always smiling Christoph and Thomas acknowledge. “Actually we did not play for ourselves or for the other team, we played as good as we can primarily for Austria, because we really wanted to have a second Austrian team in Rio,” Dressler says. “The sense of cohesion and team spirit we developed was truly remarkable, but this is something you could see also in other teams,” Kunert continues. “Usually there is a lot of internal competition during the season, you play to have more points than the other teams from your country in order to be able to enter major events, and of course this competition is genuine because it helps you develop and improve. However, we can say that in the Continental Cup we were like ‘one for all, all for one’,” Kunert adds.
Austria will be hosting next year’s World Championship in Vienna and obviously Kunert and Dressler are planning to stick together to play on that prestigious stage. “I do not know what is going to happen to the other Austrian teams, but most probably there won’t be any major changes up until the Worlds,” Dressler says. “We of course hope to compete in Vienna, possibly we will make it through the ranking points, otherwise the host country has a couple of wild-cards, but surely this is our major goal in the mid-term,” Kunert reckons.
Austrians have had in Klagenfurt their place to be for quite some time: “The event in Klagenfurt has certainly inspired many young Austrians to try and play Beach Volleyball at the highest level,” Kunert admits. “I visited the tournament myself many times as a teenager and I always told myself, one day I want to be down there on the sand and play before this great audience. At the same time, the exposure provided by the event in Klagenfurt helps not only promote Beach Volleyball, but also ourselves, because the possibility to be associated with such a major happening encourages companies to sponsor Beach Volleyball teams.”
For the time being, Kunert and Dressler enjoy playing in Jurmala: “This is not our first time here, actually. We do like the location and this time around the weather is also on the side of the organisers, so it makes the whole thing even more enjoyable. Today we lost to the Belgians in two sets, but they were able to adjust to the windy conditions a lot better than we did,” Kunert says.
As for Dressler, at 23 the younger member of the tandem, he points out another factor in his personal development: “Young players need to be able to find people who inspire them, who make them work hard and set the bar high. I personally was lucky enough to find these qualities in my coach back home in Graz, Anton Fichtinger, who kind of paved my way towards becoming a professional Beach Volleyball player.”
Pool winners
Four teams finished pool play on Friday with an impeccable record of three wins in as many matches – thus moving straight on to the quarter-finals. The eventual pool winners were home stars Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins and Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza of Latvia plus Belgium’s Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle. However, the ‘virtually’ best team from pool play was Russia’s Yaroslav Koshkarev and Ruslan Bykanov, the only ones not to drop a set in their three matches. Koshkarev/Bykanov seem to have a good feeling with Jurmala since last Sunday they won an EEVZA zonal event before staying on to compete at the CEV Masters.
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