02/04/2016 18:55
Two rookie duos make it to women’s finals in Italy
2016 CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour
Kronplatz / Plan de Corones, Italy, April 2, 2016. The first competition day on the four snow courts in Kronplatz / Plan de Corones turned the women’s tournament into a real sensation as two complete debutant teams on the CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour made the final four of the last stop for 2016, upsetting some of the heavy pre-favourites along the way.
Furthermore, both of these rookie pairs went through their Saturday’s matches unbeaten and will enter Sunday’s round robin through the front door, but particularly impressive was the performance of Germany’s Florentina Büttner/Valeriya Fedosova (pictured), who did not lose a single set. They started off with a 2-0 (11-5, 11-2) victory over Italy’s Francesca Danesi/Elena Guarino, moved on to shut out the #4-seeded Czech duo Anna Dostálová/Michaela Knoblochová by 2-0 (11-8, 11-9) before upsetting ranking leaders Greta Cicolari/Giulia Toti from Italy with a 2-0 (14-12, 11-8) win.
“This is our first Snow Volleyball tournament and we are really happy to play,” said Valeriya Fedosova. “There are so many positive emotions both on and off the court. We played very well today. Everything seemed to fall into the right place. Both of us are always positive and we believe that we can do well tomorrow as well, but we are also realistic and know that there are some really good teams. So we will see what we can do, but we will try everything and fight through the end.”
“We were surprised ourselves because this is our first tournament on the snow,” added Florentina Büttner, who found additional inspiration from the courtside presence of her mom. “How do we feel about our victory over Cicolari/Toti? This was absolutely crazy! We know them and we were respected by them when we went into the match, but then everything was working and we played point for point gaining self-confidence. We won and we are really happy about it. It has been so much fun today; the people here are so friendly and it is so cool to play here!”
“I saw that the Italian team underestimated Florentina and Valeriya and I already knew they would win, because if you underestimate them, they kill you,” commented with a smile the German girls’ coach Maximilian Hauser, who has also qualified for Sunday’s finals in the men’s tournament.
Italy’s Valentina Favaglioni/Federica Bianchini are one of the teams that received a wild card to play in Kronplatz through last week’s SnowVolley.it tournament, but they had never played on the European Tour before. They started their campaign with a 2-0 (11-6, 11-8) upset of third-seeded Alice Concas/Dalila D'Orazio from Germany. Favaglioni/Bianchini followed up with a 2-0 (11-9, 11-9) victory over sixth-seeded Marilena Peiml/Eva Meindl from Austria and a 2-1 (11-7, 6-11, 11-4) win against compatriots Catherine Marino/Francesca Fabbian.
“We won every single match today, but did not expect what was happening. We are very excited for tomorrow and we will try to become the Queens of the Snow. That is what we came here for,” stated Federica Bianchini.
The debutants will be joined in Sunday’s finals by more experienced snow volleyballers Cicolari/Toti and Dostálová/Knoblochová. Both of these teams lost to Büttner/Fedosova and had to go the longer road through the losers’ bracket to get back into contention for the continental honours on the Italian snow.
For further information visit also the official website www.snowvolleyball.com and the Instagram account @snowvolleyball
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