Men’s teams from Australia, Chile, Poland and the United States earned a second chance at the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on Tuesday by winning their ‘lucky loser’ matches in Mexico and remaining alive in the tournament.

With 32 of the 48 teams that started the tournament in contention, the Round of 32 will be played on Wednesday across the cities of Tlaxcala, Apizaco and Huamantla, opening the elimination rounds of the event, which will continue until Sunday, when the medal matches will be held.

• Watch the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships live on VBTV.

Reuniting the eight lower-ranked third-placed teams from the pool stage, the ‘lucky loser’ round featured four matches on Tuesday. In one of them, held in Apizaco, the Chilean Grimalt cousins Marco and Esteban topped Venezuelans Peter Hernandez and Hernan Tovar, who played the tournament under the FIVB flag, in straight sets (21-14, 24-22) to move forward.

“We were in full control during the first set, but ended up reducing the level of pressure we were putting on them with our serves and the match got a lot tougher,” Marco commented. “Fortunately, Esteban made some good plays at the end and gave us the win. We’re very happy to continue in the tournament, we’re feeling good on the court and are motivated for the next rounds. It’s our sixth World Championships and the experiences we had in the past help us in difficult moments like the one we had today.”

Looking to represent Chile at the Olympics for a third-straight time, the Chilean cousins are currently in the middle of the pack at the FIVB Provisional Olympic Rankings and want to improve their chances of making the trip to Paris next year with a good result at the World Championships. Their next opponents, though, will be defending champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway.

“The Olympic qualification period is very long and demanding,” Esteban reflected. “For us, getting a good result here would be huge and we’re determined to go as far as we can and, why not, also dreaming about winning the World Championships and earning a spot to Chile. We’ll have a tough match in the Round of 32 and will try to be ready and play our best.”

Beach Volleyball World Championships - Match Schedule and Results

Also in Apizaco, Americans Miles Evans and Chase Budinger eliminated the last Mexican team in the event, defeating Juan Virgen and Miguel Sarabia 2-0 (24-22, 21-19).

The two other ‘lucky loser’ matches were held in Tlaxcala, where Poles Piotr Kantor and Jakub Zdybek downed Australians Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) and Australians Chris McHugh and Paul Burnett needed the tie-breaker (21-17, 19-21, 15-12) to knock Portuguese Hugo Campos João Pedrosa out.

The 16 Round of 32 matches will be played on Wednesday, with the first of them beginning at 11:00 local time (17:00 UTC). Half of the encounters will be held in the two venues located in Tlaxcala while Apizaco and Huamantla with host four matches each.

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