03/06/2016 20:24
Experience pays off for Herrera/Gavira in close matchup with Polish rising stars
2016 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Biel / Bienne, Switzerland, June 3, 2016. Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira seem to like playing in Biel / Bienne. Back in 2014 the Spaniards stood on top of the podium of the first Masters organised on the shores of Lake Biel, and on Friday night they came from behind to claim a spot among the top 16 teams of the 2016 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship Final. It looked like things were going in the wrong way for the 2013 European champions, but a run of six points vs. only one for their opponents paved the way towards a tie-break win (21-19, 22-24, 15-13) over Poland’s Maciej Kosiak and Maciej Rudol.
The 2016 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship Final is being extensively covered on the CEV website (click here) as well as on all CEV social media pages; a comprehensive live gallery of the competition is available here while additional information can be found on the organisers’ website www.beacheuro2016.ch.
Herrera and Gavira trailed 7-10 in the third set of their matchup with the 2014 U23 world champions but showed much resilience and composure on their way to level the score at 11-all. This resulted in a time-out asked by Kosiak and Rudol but the young Poles seemed to feel the pressure as they gave away another two consecutive points after actions resumed. Kosiak and Rudol never really recovered from this blow and in the end Herrera/Gavira were the ones to celebrate a 15-13 win to get the right to challenge third-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst of Austria in the next round in what will be a remake of the 2014 European Championship bronze medal match.
“We are very happy with this victory, especially since this was a tough match,” Adrian Gavira commented. “These two young guys from Poland played a great game and made things really difficult for us.” Herrera and Gavira enjoyed almost full support from the Swiss audience and seemed delighted with their return to Biel / Bienne. “We like playing here very much. Of course we would love to get some sun; once the sun comes out, everything is just perfect here,” he added.
The real sensation of the first elimination round was caused by Norway’s Morten Kvamsdal and Christian Sandlie Sørum following their breakthrough victory over Germany’s Kay Matysik and Jonathan Erdmann (21-19, 21-18) to further cement their status of rising power.
Top-seeded Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst were made work hard by their Austrian opponents Thomas Kunert/Christoph Dressler but they eventually secured a spot in the Round of 16 after playing three close sets (21-18, 18-21, 15-9).
After losing to the Ingrosso twins earlier in the morning, reigning European champions Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins of Latvia resumed their quest for a fourth straight European medal with a 21-19, 21-16 victory over Russia’s Artem Yarzutkin and Oleg Stoyanovskiy and in the next round will be playing another Russian pair, Dmitry Barsouk/Nikita Liamin, who quite sensationally topped the final standing of Pool A earlier on Friday.
Germany, one of Europe’s Beach Volleyball powerhouses, still has two teams in the race for the title of ‘Kings of the Beach’ – on Friday late afternoon Markus Böckermann/Lars Flüggen and Sebastian Fuchs/Stefan Windscheif claimed their respective first-elimination matches with Italy’s Marco Caminati/Enrico Rossi and Greece’s Georgios Kotsilianos/Nikos Zoupanis.
The two remaining teams to progress to the second elimination round are Poland’s Michal Kadziola/Jakub Szalankiewicz and Russia’s Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnikov. The Poles edged Norway’s Iver Andreas Horrem/Geir Eithun in three sets (21-14, 21-23, 15-12) while the Russians benefited from the withdrawal of France’s Youssef Krou and Edouard Rowlandson.
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