Baden, Austria, June 17, 2017. Sunday’s matches in the men’s 2017 CEV U22 Beach Volleyball European Championship presented by SPORT.LAND.NÖ will feature a promising line-up of participants, as the top four seeds managed to make it through to the semifinals. A very exciting last competition day in Baden is guaranteed. Especially with the presence of Austria’s best duo, the home fans are sure to pack the stands at centre court to the fullest and create a fantastic atmosphere for the #EuroBeachVolleyU22 grand finale.
The top-seeded Moritz Pristauz and Paul Buchegger once again pleased the enthusiastic Austrian crowd on Saturday with two well-fought victories. In their first elimination match, they mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) victory over Ukraine’s Illia Kovalov and Vladyslav Palenko. In the last match of the day, the inspired Austrians battled through a dramatic three-setter against Switzerland’s Florian Breer and Yves Haussener towards a deserved 2-1 (21-15, 18-21, 15-8) victory and a spot in the semis.
One team made it through to the semifinals with an impeccable record and no sets lost in their five matches so far – the Russian standouts Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Artem Yarzutkin, seeded at #4. Having gone through pool play without dropping a set, Stoyanovskiy and Yarzutkin added two more shutouts to their Baden tally on Saturday – 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) against Greece’s Angelos Mandilaris and Vasileios Mandilaris and 2-0 (24-22, 21-17) against Poland’s Mateusz Paszkowski and Mateusz Lysikowski, seeded fifth.
Austria and Russia will go face to face in the first semifinal, starting on centre court at Strandbad Baden at 12:00 local time.
The reigning U22 European champion Anders Berntsen Mol and his partner and cousin Mathias Berntsen also won both of their matches on Saturday in straight sets. The second-seeded Norwegians had tough encounters with teams from Latvia and Finland, but claimed a 2-0 (21-17, 21-11) win against Kristaps Smits and Mihails Samoilovs and a 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) victory over Santeri Siren and Miro Määttänen.
After surviving two tie-breakers on Friday, third-seeded Arnaud Loiseau and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat from France were more straight-forward on Saturday and also claimed a couple of straight-set wins. After disposing of Lithuania’s Patrikas Stankevicius and Matas Navickas with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) shutout, the French guys also cruised through their quarterfinal game to a 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) victory over Spaniards Javier Huerta Pastor and Hugo Rojas Martínez.
“We were really looking forward to the match with Spain,” Gauthier-Rat said after the game. “We saw their previous match against Germany. They played a really good game. They were mentally stronger and rallied to the win in the tie-breaker, so we were expecting them to be good opponents against us. They are also friends of ours and we hang out together outside. So it is never easy and you never know what can happen. I think we made a pretty solid game today and we gave them no chance.”
Loiseau and Gauthier-Rat will lock horns with Berntsen and Mol at 1 PM on Sunday for a spot in the gold medal match.
“They are a really good team,” Gauthier-Rat commented on the next opponent. “Norway won two times in a row so it is time to take our revenge, so we are looking forward to this match.“
All matches on Sunday are scheduled for live streaming on LAOLA1.tv.
Engage with the U22 European Championship on social media by using the competition’s official hashtag #EuroBeachVolleyU22.
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