David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig gave yet another display of their enormous potential on Friday, when the 20-year-old Swedish athletes won a pair of matches at the Plaza de la Constitucion to advance to the quarterfinals of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge event in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

The reigning Youth Olympic, U21 world and U22 European champions entered the second day of the main draw facing serious risk of elimination, but showed the calm and the skills of veterans to win a pair of matches and secure a spot among the top teams of the tournament in Mexico.

In their second pool play match in Tlaxcala, the two defeated Canadian Olympian Sam Schachter and his new partner Dan Dearing 2-0 (21-13, 22-20) to make it to the elimination round. In the Round of 16, they met another Olympian, Pedro Solberg, and had the same success, defeating the Brazilian and his partner Arthur Lanci also in straight sets (22-20, 21-19).

“Losing the first match here was very frustrating, but it makes us feel even better now,” Ahman commented. “We figured we needed to change something to win today and to get two in a row, it’s just amazing. After that first match, we talked a lot with our coach. But we knew we could turn things around because the same happened at the Youth Olympics and also when we won a World Tour event in Montpellier, so we just remained confident.”

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In the quarterfinals, the Swedish pair will feature in a generational battle with Latvian veterans Aleksandrs Samoilovs, 36, and Janis Smedins, 34. The two players, who have five Olympic appearances between them, handled Swiss pair Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer in their two-set (21-19, 21-16) Round of 16 matchup.

Tlaxcala match schedule and results

Another young team to have a fantastic day in Mexico were Chileans Noe Aravena and Vicente Droguett. The 19-year-old Aravena and the 21-year-old Droguett won not two, but three matches on Friday, surviving pool play, the Round of 18 and the Round of 16 with a perfect run of two-set victories against teams that featured four Olympians and two Olympic silver medallists.

Their most emphatic result was in the Round of 16, when they upset Italian Paolo Nicolai, a silver medallist at the Rio 2016 Games, and his partner Samuele Cottafava 21-17, 21-18. A pair of Olympic medallists, Dutchmen Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, will be their quarterfinal opponents.

“We’ve been approaching one match at a time in this tournament and it’s been working,” Droguett said. “It’s been a very successful tournament for us so far and that’s really gratifying. But we know we can’t slow down or we’ll be out.”

Another major upset came from the hands of Australian qualifiers Chris McHugh and Paul Burnett. The two scored their fourth win in five matches in Tlaxcala in great fashion, downing Rio 2016 Olympic champion Alison Cerutti and his Brazilian partner Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes in straight sets (21-13, 21-16). Their quarterfinal opponents will be Polish pair Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak, who eliminated Estonians Kusti Nolvak and Mart Tiisaar also in two sets (21-18, 21-19).

The final quarterfinal matchup in Tlaxcala will oppose Vitor Felipe/Renato Lima and Daniele Lupo/Alex Ranghieri. The Brazilians moved forward after they defeated Americans Theo Brunner and Chaim Schalk 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) while the Italian Olympians advanced with a three-set (21-16, 17-21, 15-9) victory against Bruno Schmidt and Saymon Barbosa of Brazil.

Saturday’s schedule in Tlaxcala will feature the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds for the men. The medal matches will be played on Sunday, the final day of the event in Mexico.

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