09/08/2014 08:42
Major surprises highlight third day of action at Vaduz Satellite
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Vaduz
Vaduz, Liechtenstein, August 9, 2014. Friday was a perfect day for the organisers as well as for players and fans at the CEV Satellite in Vaduz. About 2,500 people made it to the venue of the tournament set up in Vaduz downtown to follow a series of close matches marked by long and spectacular rallies, with the surplus of pleasant weather conditions. The women’s competition has already reached its final stages determining the semi-finalists that will return to the sand on Saturday whereas the men played the first and second round of the main draw followed by the first series of matches in the losers’ bracket.
Women’s semi-finals determined
The matches starring the home teams initially scheduled for Thursday night were postponed to Friday morning. Nina Ludwig/Ramona Kaiser and Claudia Hasler/Petra Schifferle-Walser started their day already at 8:30 am and they eventually lost their respective matches to Germany’s Anna Behlen/Katharina Culav and Poland’s Karolina Baran/Jagoda Gruszczynska without winning a set.
Germany’s Katharina Schillerwein/Cinja Tillmann are turning into the revelation of the tournament. They started their campaign on Wednesday with the country quota matches and on Friday they claimed their third round match edging Spain’s Angela Lobato Herrero/Paula Soria Gutierrez, the bronze medallists from last year’s U22 European Championship, after three close sets (21-18, 18-21, 15-13) thereby progressing straight to the semi-finals. In the previous round Schillerwein and Tillmann had routed their countrywomen Kim Behrens/Sandra Seyfferth (21-16, 21-19), the second-seeded pair of the Vaduz Satellite.
The campaign of Behrens/Seyfferth then came to an end on Friday afternoon as they lost to Spain’s Amaranta Fernandez Navarro/Ester Ribera Boter (19-21, 20-22), and as a result the Germans have to be content with fifth place. Fernandez Navarro/Ribera Boter will be playing Schillerwein and Tillmann in the second semi-final scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 3 pm.
Austria’s #1 seeded Katharina Schützenhöfer and Lena Plesiutschnig are still on track and in contention for gold: on Friday they played only one game with Spain’s Fernandez Navarro/Ribera Boter (21-17, 28-26) to make it straight to the semis where they will play Finland’s Riikka Lehtonen and Taru Lahti.
Italy’s Casadei/Vanni upset strong German and Austrian teams
It wasn’t a happy day for German teams in the men’s competition with the only exception being twins Bennet and David Poniewaz, who extended their series of triumphs they had started on Wednesday with the country quota matches. In the second round David and Bennet played an excellent game to edge their countrymen and #2 seeded Armin Dollinger/Clemens Wickler (19-21, 21-18, 15-9) to advance straight to the quarterfinals. They will play there last year’s finalists Tobias Winter and Lorenz Petutschnig who after a performance packed with ups and downs in their first round match with Israel’s Sean Faiga/Ariel Hilman (19-21, 21-18, 15-11) easily downed Greece’s Georgios Kotsilianos and Nikos Zoupanis (21-19, 21-16).
Maciej Kosiak and Maciej Rudol of Poland, the reigning U23 world champions, also made it to round 3 to play Italy’s sensation Gianluca Casadei and Francesco Vanni (pictured), who after making the main draw through the qualification round, recorded two wins on Friday over Germany’s first-seeded Sebastian Fuchs/Thomas Kaczmarek (21-13, 21-17) and Austria’s Daniel Müllner/Jörg Wutzl (16-21, 21-14, 15-9).
The only Swiss team in the competition, newly-formed duo Fabio Berta/Gabriel Kissling, were moved to the losers’ bracket after their defeat to Kotsilianos/Zoupanis; the young Swiss pair got back on track with a solid performance to edge Israel’s Faiga/Hilman (21-18, 21-18) and stay alive in the competition. The Swiss team claimed a terrific 6:1 lead in the second set with excellent serving but the set got much closer after they started making unforced errors.
All matches taking place on the centre court set up at Städtle Vaduz are being streamed live and for free at LAOLA1.tv
Click here for more information including results, a picture gallery and much more
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