Australia’s Thomas Hodges & Zachery Schubert, who started their participation in the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Jurmala Challenge event from Thursday’s qualifiers, made it all the way to Sunday’s semifinals, in which they will take on Brazil’s Renato Lima & Vitor Felipe. Another two Brazilian duos, Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano and Andre Stein & George Wanderley, will meet in the other battle for a spot in the gold medal match.

· Watch the Beach Pro Tour Jurmala Challenge live on VBTV.

On Saturday, 20^th-seeded Hodges & Schubert registered their fifth and sixth straight wins in the Latvian sand. They started their day with a thrilling 70-point set, which they eventually lost to second-seeded Ukrainians Sergiy Popov & Eduard Reznik. However, they mounted a furious comeback to win this eighthfinal duel by 2-1 (34-36, 21-14, 15-13). Schubert piled up an incredible tally of 40 points, of which two aces and 38 spikes. On the other side of the net, Reznik finished with “only” 30 points, including six kill blocks. The Aussies’ quarterfinal game also offered a three-set battle, in which Hodges & Schubert persevered on the way to a 2-1 (21-17, 17-21, 15-10) victory over fourth-seeded Steven van de Velde & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands. This time Hodges was the big point-maker for his team, with a tally of six kill blocks, three aces and 14 successful spikes.

For Evandro & Arthur, Saturday’s competition day consisted of two straight-set victories. In the eighthfinals, the seventh-seeded Brazilians claimed a 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) win over USA’s Chase Budinger & Miles Evans, with six kill blocks by Evandro and a 21-point match high by Arthur. Then, they managed a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) shutout of Polish qualifiers Piotr Kantor & Jakub Zdybek in the quarterfinals. Evandro delivered four kill blocks and four aces to match Kantor as the game best scorer on 19 points.

Top-seeded Andre & George had a tight eighthfinal encounter with Norway’s Hendrik Mol & Mathias Berntsen, seeded fifth, which they managed to win by 2-0 (21-19, 22-20). Andre raised a solid nine kill blocks towards the match high of 19 points. In the quarterfinals, the Brazilians had another tough meeting. In a three-set battle with eighth-seeded Americans Chaim Schalk & Tri Bourne, they mastered a 2-1 (25-23, 17-21, 15-9) victory. Andre’s tally in this match reached 29 points, including four kill blocks and two aces.

Vitor Felipe & Renato, seeded 11th in the men’s main draw, hammered out an emphatic 2-0 (21-15, 21-16) sweep of their eighthfinal match with Switzerland’s Adrian Heidrich & Leo Dillier. Renato contributed three aces, four kill blocks and seven spikes to the victory, while Dillier produced the match high of 20 points. Like their compatriots Andre & George, Vitor Felipe & Renato also had to cope with a three-set quarterfinal against American opponents and managed to overcome their resistance to emerge with the victory. They defeated Trevor Crabb & Theodore Brunner by 2-1 (21-18, 18-21, 15-9) with Renato beautifully putting away the match winner with an ace, as both he and his partner scored 20+ points towards this success.

Men’s semifinal action on Sunday will get underway at 13:00 local time (10:00 UTC). The bronze medal match is scheduled at 16:30 (13:30) and the big final will start at 18:30 (15:30).

VW Beach Pro Tour Jurmala Challenge: all results and schedule

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