Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler didn’t have an easy pool at the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, but they navigated it extremely well and will enter the elimination rounds in Mexico with plenty of confidence.

Besides claiming wins in each of their three Pool F matches in Tlaxcala, the Germans were one of just three teams to go through the opening round of the tournament without dropping any sets.

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After sweeps against Chile’s Noe Aravena/Vicente Droguett and Poland’s Piotr Kantor/Jakub Zdybek over the weekend, the Germans returned to the Tlaxcala Bullring on Monday to complete their schedule against Americans Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk.

Ehlers and Wickler got as close as it gets to dropping their first set in Mexico against the Americans, but managed to win the opening set and secure their third 2-0 (22-20, 21-16) victory in as many days in Mexico.

“It’s never perfect, but we got to win all three matches with good results and that’s something we can be proud of,” Ehlers commented. “This match was very close, but I think we were able to remain solid and calm the entire time and that helped us get the breaks at the end. That’s something we’ve worked on during the last weeks, so it feels good to see the results.”

At the conclusion of Pool F, Aravena and Droguett, who got two victories, and Kantor and Zdybek, who got one, also advanced. Bourne and Schalk, who dropped all three matches and didn’t win any sets, are eliminated.

Beach Volleyball World Championships - Match Schedule and Results

Besides the Germans, two other teams had perfect campaigns in pool play, winning all three matches and not dropping sets. Among them were Swedish David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig, who finished first in Pool B with a straight-set (21-11, 24-22) victory against Australians Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert on Monday.

Spanish veterans Pablo Herrera and Adrián Gavira had similar success in Pool H. On Monday, they got their third sweep in Tlaxcala, beating Italians Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava in two sets (21-15, 21-18).

Also winning their pools in Mexico were Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum (Pool A), USA’s Andy Benesh/Miles Partain (Pool C), USA’s Theo Brunner/Trevor Crabb (Pool D), Austria’s Robin Seidl/Moritz Pristauz (Pool E), Qatar’s Cherif Younousse/Ahmed Tijan (Pool G), Cuba’s Jorge Alayo/Noslen Diaz (Pool I), the Netherlands’ Matthew Immers/Steven van de Velde (Pool J), Poland’s Michal Bryl/Bartosz Łosiak (Pool K) and Brazil’s Vitor Felipe/Renato Lima (Pool L).

On Tuesday, just the ‘lucky loser’ round will be played, with eight teams that finished third in their pools playing for the last four spots in the Round of 32, which will be held on Wednesday.

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