21/04/2019 19:30
Top-seeded Belarus team strikes gold in Sweden without dropping a single set
2019 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Göteborg
Göteborg, Sweden, April 21, 2019. If Emi van Driel/Raisa Schoon started from the 14th seed to claim women’s gold, Aliaksandr Dziadkou and Pavel Piatrushka of Belarus lived up to their status of top seeds at the 1-Star tournament in Göteborg to seize men’s gold. The eventual winners did not lose a single set throughout the tournament.
Sweden’s first ever World Tour event saw Swedish Beach Volleyball history in the making as Martin Appelgren/Alexander Annerstedt made it to the semi-finals as the first men’s team from the Scandinavian country to achieve this feat. They played top-seeded Aliaksandr Dziadkou/Pavel Piatrushka in the semis at the Beach Center, the world’s biggest indoor Beach Volleyball facility, in front of a frantic home crowd cheering on every ball.
However, the Belarus pair eventually recorded a 21-17, 21-16 victory. Martin Appelgren, clearly disappointed after the game, could not help but compliment the home crowd. “The crowd was awesome. It did not matter if we were up 18-10 or down by the same score, they were always cheering on every ball throughout the tournament,” he said after the loss.
Aliaksandr Dziadkou of Belarus portrayed during the semi-final of the 1-Star event in Göteborg.
In the other semi-final, it was Turkey’s Selcuk Sekerci/Safa Urlu against Latvia’s Toms Smedins/Haralds Regza. The Latvians won the first set by 21-14 but they suffered a setback in the second one (16-21) and had to play yet another tiebreak. This ended 15-12 for the no. 7 seeds from Latvia against the Turkish team, seeded no. 3 in Göteborg.
Without dropping a single set throughout the tournament, Dziadkou/Piatrushka continued their winning streak and capped it with another 2-0 victory (21-14, 21-14) against their Latvian rivals. The Belarus duo just started playing together this year, as the experienced Dziadkou’s previous partner Aliaksandr Kavalenka recently retired from competitive sport; as a result, he formed a team with young talent Piatrushka. They won their second World Tour medal together as a team after a previous gold back in early December in Ljubljana. The first competition that the Belarus duo ever played together was at Beach Center in Göteborg last year as Göteborg Beach Club hosted a CEV Satellite but that was only a temporary run as they started playing together for real last fall only.
The podium of the 1-Star event in Göteborg, with Belarus, Latvia and Turkey securing gold, silver and bronze, respectively.
Dziadkou said that he felt at home in Beach Center. “I can see that Swedes like Beach Volleyball very much and it is such a great facility. We have indoor facilities back home but only with one court, so not like this at all,” he said. Although Dziadkou sailed through the tournament without losing any set, including the final, he spoke highly of his opponents. “It is tough to play against Smedins. He is such an experienced player so to play against him and Regza was hard,” he commented.
In the men’s bronze medal game, Sekerci/Urlu faced the home team Appelgren/Annerstedt, who enjoyed the crowd’s unwavering support yet again. The atmosphere was once again on top at the Beach Center as the home crowd tried to help the home team in the hunt for a historic bronze medal. Sekerci/Urlu won the first set quite easy (21-13) but the Swedes were not ready to give up on bronze. The second set started more competitively and halfway through the score was even. However, Turkey scored seven straight points making it too hard for Sweden to come back. The crowd still cheered for their home team as they finished the tournament in fourth place, which is the best result ever achieved by a men’s Swedish team in a World Tour event.
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