23/03/2018 20:01
Four men’s pairs win twice each on day 1 of #EuroSnowVolley
2018 CEV Snow Volleyball European Championship
Wagrain-Kleinarl, Austria, March 23, 2018. As many as 10 of the 16 eighth-finalists in the men’s competition of the 2018 CEV Snow Volleyball European Championship became known on Friday, as two of the three legs of pool play got the competition underway in snowy conditions in the Austrian Alps. Four duos managed to register two victories each to secure the top of their respective pool’s standings, with three of them being the lowest-seeded teams in their groups.
In Pool A, top-seeded and 2018 ‘Kings of the Snow’ Ruslan Daianov and Taras Myskiv started with a 2-1 (11-8, 9-11, 11-7) win against Norway’s Henrik Skogen/Vegard Løkken, topping it with a 2-0 (11-7, 11-9) shutout of home stars Florian Schnetzer and Daniel Müllner.
In Pool D, Lithuania’s Lukas Kazdailis/Arnas Rumsevicius, seeded 21st, upset fourth-seeded Russians Yury Bogatov/Pavel Rakusov with a 2-0 (17-15, 11-6) victory and followed up with another straight-setter – 2-0 (11-7, 11-7) against Austria’s Benedikt Kattner/Mathias Seiser, seeded 13th.
The lowest-seeded team in Pool H, Rihards Finsters/Aleksandrs Solovejs, at #17, mastered a 2-0 (14-12, 11-6) win against eighth-seeded Romanians Bogdan Necula/Tudorel Farcas. The Latvians persevered through a spectacular three-set battle to claim a 2-1 (17-15, 7-11, 16-14) victory over eighth-seeded Germans Paul Becker/Jonas Schröder in what was the longest running match of the day.
#18 in the men’s seeding, Georgios Kotsilianos/Panagiotis Ioannidis of Greece, also upset both of their higher-ranked opponents in Pool G, starting with a 2-0 (14-12, 11-9) win against Switzerland’s Raphael Zurgilgen/Remo Spahr and moving on to another hard-fought 2-0 (11-8, 19-17) victory over Italy’s Enrico Lupatelli/Michele Maines.
“We did not expect this. We came here to have fun and try our best,” Kotsilianos said. “But we managed to win the pool with two victories and it feels really good. We hope to keep going like that and further improve our game through the tournament. We arrived from Athens, where it was sunny and the temperature was over 20 degrees. This is a big difference for us. I hope tomorrow’s weather will be more comfortable for playing and we will do even better.”
In each of the three other pools, one team lost both their matches, which automatically means that the other two pairs of that pool will be advancing to the next round. However, they will have to play each other on Saturday to determine who enters the direct eliminations as a pool winner and who will be doing so as runners-up. The six pairs, who qualified this way, are Poland’s Michal Matyja/Piotr Janiak and Czech Republic’s David Kufa/Robert Kufa from Pool C, Poland’s Piotr Groszek/Mateusz Zieba and Slovenia’s Tadej Bozenk/Anze Bahc from Pool E, as well as Austria’s Alexander Huber/Martin Streitfellner and Hungary’s Izsak Soos/Viktor Erik Ban from Pool F.
Three teams known to be very strong ended up playing in Pool B, therefore dubbed the “pool of death”. It is the only pool where everything is still up for grabs. In the first match, Turkish stars Murat Giginoglu/Hasan Hüseyin Mermer snatched a 2-0 (16-14, 12-10) victory over second-seeded Russians Ruslan Bykanov/Maksim Hudyakov, but then lost to Switzerland’s Sébastien Chevallier/Alexei Strasser by 1-2 (5-11, 14-12, 11-13), leaving everything in the hands of the opponents, who will face each other on Saturday in the pool’s last game.
Saturday’s action is set to start at 09:30 CET and continue with the single elimination rounds until the last remaining four teams emerge.
Click here for further information or visit www.snowvolleyball.com
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