Kharkiv, Ukraine, July 8, 2017. Teams from Ukraine and Germany qualified for the semis of the CEV Satellite in Kharkiv on Saturday. The weather conditions were excellent for the second competition day in the Ukrainian city, with pleasant sun and a little breeze as Ukraine’s home stars Oleksii Denin/Sergiy Popov and Germany’s Lorenz Schümann and Alexander Walkenhorst secured a spot in the semis with a clean run in their matches.
Denin/Popov first beat Finland’s Pekka Piippo/Jyrki Nurminen 21-17, 21-18 and after that they swept aside also the gold medallists from the CEV Satellite held earlier this spring in Göteborg, France’s Arnaud Loiseau and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat (21-16, 21-8), thus making amends for the loss they suffered in Sweden back in April. The second set was especially one-sided, thus making the Ukrainians’ triumph even more convincing. After that, Denin and Popov won the Ukrainian derby with Illia Kovalov and Denys Denysenko 21-16, 21-13 – after the latter ones had previously beaten teams from England and Estonia to ‘justify’ their wild card to enter the Main Draw.
Schümann/Walkenhorst of Germany were almost just as dominant as Denin and Popov. They first beat Jan Dumek and David Lenc of the Czech Republic 22-20, 21-12, before they rallied past 2015 World Championship silver medallist Christiaan Varenhorst and his new partner Maarten van Garderen of the Netherlands 2-1 (21-15, 19-21, 15-12). In their next match where a spot in the semis was at stake, Schümann and Walkenhorst beat Aliaksandr Kavalenka and Aliaksandr Dziadkou of Belarus 21-19, 21-15.
With Denin/Popov and Schümann/Walkenhorst already among the top four, another six teams are chasing a spot in the semis – these are Varenhorst/van Garderen, Kavalenka/Dziadkou, Kovalov/Denysenko, plus Russia’s Alexander Likholetov/Ilya Leshukov, France’s Youssef Krou and Quincy Ayé and Slovenia’s Nejc Zemljak/Jan Pokersnik.
Apart from the CEV Satellite, Kharkiv is also hosting the Pool B tournament for the qualifying stage of the 2017-2018 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup featuring teams from Azerbaijan, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark and Ukraine. The eventual winners will be known on Sunday but so far, Ukraine’s Ihor Sviridov/Vladyslav Pavliuk and Kateryna Dashevska/Viktoria Lysytsia have been the dominant force in the boys’ and girls’ competition, respectively.
Live streaming of the final matches on July 9 will be available at LAOLA1.tv, as well as on two Ukrainian websites, Xsport and Sport 1, not to forget a YouTube channel set up by Broadcasting Solutions Kharkiv.
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