16/06/2016 22:00
Defending #EuroBeachVolleyU20 champions aiming for back-to-back titles
2016 CEV U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship
Antalya, Turkey, June 16, 2016. In 2015 Nika Daalderop and Joy Stubbe were crowned U20 European champions at the tournament held in Larnaka, Cyprus. This year the Beach Volleyball players from The Netherlands are aiming for back-to-back titles in this same age group. The Dutch started their quest for gold in the best way on Thursday: they won their first two pool matches.
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Daalderop and Stubbe had a good start on Thursday when they defeated Switzerland’s Esmée Böbner/Jill Frangi 2-0 (21-17, 21-18). In the evening they played the closing match on the centre court against Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka from Latvia. Graudina also conquered a gold medal of an under-age tournament last year, when she won the U18 European Championship with Paula Neciporuka in front of her home crowd in Riga.
Both of these top teams gave their very best on the centre court which resulted in a thrilling second set. The Dutch proved to be just a little stronger in the final phase of the match (26-24), which resulted in a 2-0 victory for Daalderop and Stubbe.
Besides The Netherlands and Latvia there are some more experienced and decorated teams present in Antalya. The Finnish duo Ida Sinisalo/Niina Ahtiainen (bronze U18 2014 and silver U20 2015) played one match on Thursday and opened with a comfortable victory over Portugal’s Gabriela Coelho and Margarida Vasques (21-12, 21-15).
Katharina Holzer (silver U18 2015) was successful with her new partner Nikolina Maros. The Austrian girls are leading the way in Pool C for now after beating teams from Turkey and Slovakia and on Friday will play Lithuania’s Irina Zobnina/Migle Mazurkeviciute for first place in the group. The former partner of Holzer, Ilona Kiss, lost her first match with her new teammate Franziska Friedl. Their opponent Germany, with former U18 European champion Lena Ottens, was just too strong.
Tereza Kotlasova, who won the bronze medal with Marie-Sara Stochlova at the 2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championship in Latvia, won her first match in Turkey with her new partner Daniela Resova. The girls from the Czech Republic won an interesting, 50-minute long match against Belgium’s Anke Vandycke and Lotte Vandendriessche (22-20, 24-22).
On Friday the last pool matches will be played before the knock-out phase starts on Saturday.
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