21/08/2015 23:55
A few sensations highlight start of Main Draw at Skopje Satellite
2015 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Skopje
Skopje, Former Y.R. of Macedonia, August 21, 2015. The first day of Main Draw action at the CEV Satellite in Skopje provided a few sensations as top-seeded Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol of Poland as well as third-seeded Jake Sheaf/Chris Gregory of England lost their respective night matches and will now have to fight their way back through the losers’ bracket.
Poland’s Kosiak/Rudol had comfortably claimed their first match in the tournament cruising to a 21-14, 21-14 victory over David Kufa and David Lenc of the Czech Republic but they had to fight a lot more in their matchup with Belgium’s Dries Koekelkoren and Tom Van Walle. Though Kosiak and Rudol, the reigning U23 world champions, comfortably won the first set by 21-15, the Belgians responded by seizing the second with the same score and eventually booked a spot in Round 3 with their 19-17 win in the tie-break.
As for Sheaf and Gregory, after they had fought for three sets earlier in the morning to edge Switzerland’s Sébastien Chevallier/Marco Krattiger (16-21, 21-18, 15-9), they lost their second match of the Main Draw to Norway’s Daniel Bergerud/Svein Oddmund Solhaug. The Scandinavians had progressed to the Main Draw via the qualification round contested on Thursday and they started the match with Sheaf and Gregory on a high note cruising to a speedy 21-12 set win. The English lads fought back in a dramatic second set (22-20) and even though they set the pace also in the early stages of the tie-break, they ended up losing it 10-15.
Latvia’s Rihards Finsters/Edgars Tocs (pictured) scored two consecutive wins to progress to Round 3 as did also Greece’s Georgios Kotsilianos/Nikos Zoupanis who came back from one set down to edge Serbia’s Stefan Basta/Lazar Kolaric at the tie-break (19-21, 21-16, 15-10). Zoupanis and Kotsilianos caught a slow start but they stepped up in the second set and played with a lot more consistency and quality in the tie-break, this way securing a spot in Round 3. The Greeks are now only one step away from making the semis.
If the qualification round contested one day earlier did not cause any sensation, Friday’s matches definitely justified the audience’s attention as the tribunes of the stadium set up at the ‘Park’ beach in Skopje were filled up to capacity.
The competition will now continue on Saturday and by the end of the day the names of the four semi-finalists will be known.
All matches of the CEV Satellite in Skopje are streamed live and for free at LAOLA1.tv
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