Tokyo 2020 Olympic champions Mol & Sorum, seeded second in the Rio Elite16 main draw, had to persevere through two three-setters in Pool B, but managed to win both tie-breakers. First, they claimed a 2-1 (21-16, 20-22, 15-8) victory over German qualifiers Philipp Huster & Maximilian Just. The two Norwegians scored 21 points apiece, while Huster topped the chart with 24. Then, the Beachvolley Vikings overcame the resistance of Brazil’s Adelmo Folha & Andre Stein in a 2-1 (15-21, 21-18, 15-11) comeback, with Mol (six kill blocks) and Andre (seven kill blocks) sharing the top scorer honours with 21 points each.
The reigning European champions, the Latvian pairing of 39-year-old Martins Plavins, who claimed bronze at London 2012, and 19-year-old rising star and 2022 U19 world champ Kristians Fokerots, are also in Pool B in Rio. They lost their opening match to Adelmo & Andre in three sets, 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 15-6), despite Fokerots’ 30-point match high, but then bounced back with an emphatic 2-0 (21-8, 21-12) shutout of Huster & Just, with nine kill blocks from the Latvian teenager.
In Pool D, Brazil’s Adrielson & Arthur and Argentina’s Capogrosso & Capogrosso picked up two wins each before locking horns with each other on Friday for a direct ticket to the quarterfinals. The fourth-seeded Brazilians started with a forfeit win over Argentinean qualifiers Juan Amieva & Maciel Bueno and went on to master a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) sweep of their encounter with Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov & Eduard Reznik. Before that, Popov & Reznik pushed the Capogrosso brothers to a third-set tie-breaker, but the South Americans came out with a 2-1 (21-15, 16-21, 15-13) victory, with a 25-point match high from Tomas Capogrosso. In an all-Argentinean clash, the brothers hammered out a convincing 2-0 (21-9, 21-15) shutout of Amieva & Bueno.
