Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallists Mariafe Artacho Del Solar & Taliqua Clancy of Australia won the second women’s eighthfinal at the Paris 2024 Olympic beach volleyball tournament and advanced to a quarterfinal clash with Switzerland’s Esmee Bobner & Zoe Verge-Depre. Then, Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli & Nina Brunner managed to overcome the resistance of Spain’s Liliana Fernandez & Paula Soria and are now already awaiting the name of their quarterfinal opponent.
Seventh-seeded Huberli & Brunner continued to show the excellent shape they are in at the Olympics and produced one more win in their impeccable Paris 2024 campaign so far. In Sunday’s eighthfinal against 13th-seeded Liliana & Paula, the Swiss pair registered their fourth consecutive straight-set win, 2-0 (23-21, 21-16).
Liliana, for whom it turned out to be the last Olympic match in a remarkable beach volleyball career, and Paula were close to spoiling that perfection when they reached the first two set points in the match. Huberli & Brunner, however, survived both and then stepped forward with three in a row to claim the set. They were much more dominant in the second set and although the Spaniards kept up the fight, the Swiss closed the match with Huberli putting away the winner. She was the best scorer of the game with 20 points, including three blocks and an ace. Brunner fired four aces to finish with 15 points. Liliana also scored four aces to lead her team with 14 points.
“The match was tough,” Huberli commented. “We had some tough moments. I think they played really brave, but we expected it that they would come and give everything, especially a lot of risk in serving, and that’s what they did well and with a lot of success. So we were under pressure all the time, and I think our service level was not as good as it was in the first three games, but it was OK. It’s amazing! You cannot expect that you go through all the games like we did in the group stage, and I think some moments like this, if you have them in the tournament, can also be very helpful.”