Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Beach Volleyball

Brouwer & Meeuwsen win first day’s big match in Tokyo

Heavy favourites Mol & Sorum survive tough resistance from Aussies McHugh & Schumann

Published 02:32, 24 Jul 2021

Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen won the most anticipated clash on the first competition day at the Tokyo 2020 men’s beach volleyball tournament. In one of Saturday’s four men's matches at the Shiokaze Park, the experienced Dutch pair shut out 41-year-old American veterans Nick Lucena and Phil Dalhausser.

In one of the Pool D first-leg fixtures, 31-year-old Brouwer and 33-year-old Meeuwsen, Rio 2016 bronze medallists, managed to come back from behind in each of the two sets to claim a 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) victory over Lucena and three-time Olympian and Beijing 2008 gold medallist Dalhausser.

“It’s a great feeling! Nice way to start the tournament,” Robert Meeuwsen told Volleyball World after the game. “We were a bit nervous at the start, but really focused on our task, and I think we played at a decent level as well.”

“Of course, we are proud of this win in our opening match,” Alexander Brouwer added. “Although we were behind in both sets, we kept fighting, we made some really good plays and we found our way back. We kept our focus, we kept our calm and I am really proud of the way we played this evening.”

In the same pool, defending champion and two-time Olympic medallist Alison Cerutti and his teammate Alvaro Filho of Brazil won the Tokyo 2020 beach volleyball opening match against Argentina’s Julian Amado Azaad and Nicolas Capogrosso by 2-0 (21-16, 21-17).

Konstantin Semenov in action

Pool A was also in action on the first competition day in the Japanese capital. Ilya Leshukov and Konstantin Semenov of ROC won each of the two sets against legendary Spaniards Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira by the narrowest of margins, 2-0 (21-19, 22-20).

In the last match on Saturday’s programme, heavy favourites Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway met some very tough resistance from ‘last-minute’ qualifiers Christopher McHugh and Damien Schumann of Australia, but survived for a narrow 2-1 (21-18, 18-21, 15-13) victory to avoid what would have been a major upset.