14/06/2012 19:00
Qualification completed in Umag as Italy's evergreen Papagna is out
CEV Beach Volleyball Challenger & Satellites
Umag, Croatia, June 14, 2012. A total of 8 spots for the Main Draw were at stake on Thursday at the CEV Satellite tournament in Umag.
Austria’s Florian Schnetzer and Tobias Koraimann celebrated a great start of their campaign there: after going through the Country Quotas on Wednesday, they scored two more wins to eventually make it to the Main Draw.
Ruslan Bykanov and Pavel Karpukhin will be Russia’s only duo in the Main Draw after they edged on Thursday Tilo Backhaus and Dirk Westphal of Germany with a double 21-19.
On their way to the Main Draw Poland’s Kacper Kujawiak/Michal Bryl first downed the local heroes Mudri/Kruno in straight sets (21-5, 21-16) before they powered past their compatriots Lukasz and Sebastian Kaczmarek (21-19, 17-21, and 15-11).
Timo Haavisto/Toni Havela of Finland did also join the Main Draw of the CEV Satellite in Umag after cruising past Bogdan Bratosin and Iulian Bala of Romania in the second round of the qualification. Italy and Portugal got a spot for the Main Draw via their respective duos Alex Ranghieri/Matteo Cecchini and Pedro Rosas/Rui Moreira while Swiss pair Rafael Bissig/Bernhard Beyeler stretched their winning streak from the Country Quota to also make it to the Main Draw, accompanied there by Jonas Kvalen/Svein Solhaug of Norway who claimed the last match of the day by edging Bulgaria’s Yordanov/Kolev in straight sets.
The real man of the day was nevertheless Italy’s Roberto Papagna, who – at the “tender” age of 49 – is representing his country on the international stage. Together with partner Gianluca Oligeri, he debuted this past January at the CEV indoor Satellite in Aalsmeer where they even beat a strong and decorated pair from Turkey. After devoting much of his time to Volleyball and athletics during his youth, Papagna took up Beach Volleyball by the time he was already 37. Living in Aosta, i.e. in a city which is surrounded by some of Europe’s most beautiful peaks, he still finds time for some training sessions in Rome and even after a surgery in 2010 he did not stop playing and re-started his adventure by joining some tournaments of the national circuit in Italy. “I basically play for fun and to stay fit, hoping that I can continue as long as possible” he says. The CEV Satellite in Umag was not that lucky for him and partner Oligeri as they lost in the qualification to their countrymen Ranghieri and Cecchini, but this is certainly not the last stop of this exceptional story!
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