Riding on the momentum from their historic Elite16 win in Rio de Janeiro three weeks ago, Bello & Bello have yet to lose a set since then. On Saturday in Nuvali, the English twins had only one match to play and they shut out third-seeded Leon Luini & Ruben Penninga of the Netherlands in a 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) straight-setter. They skipped the first elimination round as pool winners and then this victory in the second round was enough to propel them straight into the semifinals as one of the two teams with the best records so far.
Waller & Hammarberg have been following a similar path of three straight-set wins so far in Nuvali and also skipped the third knockout round on the way to the semis. In their only game on Saturday, the Austrians hammered out an emphatic 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) shutout of USA’s Chaim Schalk & James Shaw.
The other two semifinallists are also continuing their unbeaten runs in the Philippines. As pool winners, they skipped the first knockout round, went on to win their second-round matches, but since they had some sets dropped along the way, they had to go through a third elimination round, the so-called round of six.
In the round of 12, 10th-seeded Holting Nilsson & Andersson survived a three-set battle with fourth-seeded Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye of France to emerge with a 2-1 (21-16, 18-21, 16-14) victory in the overtime of the tie-breaker. Then, the Swedish teenagers were pushed to a tie-breaker by German qualifiers Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter, but managed to come back from a set down on the way to a 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 15-12) win and a semifinal spot. This way, the young Swedes are expanding the winning streak that started last week and led them to the top of the Chennai Challenge podium over a total of 14 consecutive matches now.
Another German team from the qualifiers, Henning & Wust, came through the third knockout round with a convincing 2-0 (21-12, 21-15) shutout of Austria’s Alexander Horst & Paul Pascariuc. Before that, in the second round, the 16th-seeded Germans knocked out fifth-seeded compatriots Philipp Huster & Maximilian Just in a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) sweep.
