Five of the six round-of-12 and three of the six round-of-18 matches in the men’s tournament at the Cape Town Elite on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour were pushed to tie-breaker resolutions as the line-up for Saturday’s quarterfinals shaped up in a thrilling manner. Steven van de Velde & Alexander Brouwer of the Netherlands and Adelmo Folha & Mateus Dultra of Brazil were the two teams that had to win two tie-breakers in the playoffs so far to make their way to the last eight of the competition.

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In a high-profile round-of-12 game, Dutch Olympians Van de Velde & Brouwer, seeded third in the Cape Town main draw, achieved a 2-1 (21-17, 11-21, 15-10) victory over Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalists Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler of Germany. Van de Velde raised an impressive seven kill blocks and fired two aces to finish with 17 points, while Brouwer delivered a match-high 20 points. Fourth-seeded Ehlers & Wickler emerged as one of the two round-of-12 losers that still advanced to the quarterfinals. In Friday’s first elimination round, Van de Velde & Brouwer came back from a set down to celebrate a 2-1 (17-21, 21-13, 15-10) win over Brazil’s Adrielson Dos Santos & Arthur Da Silva.

15^th-seeded Adelmo & Mateus started the playoffs with a 2-1 (20-22, 21-17, 15-12) comeback victory over Mozambique’s Jose Alberto Mondlane & Osvaldo Mungoi and followed up with a 2-1 (13-21, 21-18, 15-12) comeback win over Czechia’s Tadeas Trousil & Jiri Sedlak.

In the quarterfinals, Adelmo & Mateus will meet Norway’s Mathias Berntsen & Hendrik Mol, who emerged the winners of the longest lasting playoff match so far. After 52 minutes of play in the round of 12, they could celebrate a hard-fought 2-1 (22-20, 23-25, 15-12) victory over Austrian qualifiers Alexander Horst & Moritz Pristauz. Pristauz won the high-power blocking battle with Mol by 9-7 in stuffs, but the quarterfinal spot was grabbed by the Norwegians.

In the playoff match with the highest number of rallies, 119, fifth-seeded Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye of France outlasted Austria’s Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger, seeded sixth, to claim a 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 22-20) round-of-12 victory. However, both teams advanced to the quarterfinals. In the round of 18, the Frenchmen mastered a 2-0 (21-11, 21-13) shutout of Czechia’s Tomas Semerad & Adam Stocek. Bassereau stood out with eight kill blocks in that match. In the next round, Hammarberg & Berger will challenge Van de Velde & Brouwer, while Bassereau & Aye take on Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano Lanci.

The second-seeded Brazilians refused to enter any tie-breaker dramas in the first two playoff rounds and cruised to straight-set sweeps of both their matches - 2-0 (21-9, 21-18) against American qualifiers Timothy Brewster & Ryan Ierna and 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) against German qualifiers Momme Lorenz & Tilo Rietschel.

The tournament’s top seeds Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson of Sweden also had to resort to a tie-breaker resolution in their round-of-12 match against Vinicius Freitas & Heitor Barbosa of Brazil, but survived in the competition after a 2-1 (21-17, 16-21, 15-13) victory to lock horns with Ehlers & Wickler for a spot in the semifinals.

The men’s quarterfinals will be played on Saturday – two at 16:00 local time (14:00 UTC) and the other two at 17:00 (15:00).

Beach Pro Tour Cape Town Elite: schedule and results

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