Switzerland’s Joana Heidrich and Anouk Verge-Depre and USA’s Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes will meet in Sunday’s J&T Banka Ostrava Beach Open women’s final. Before that, Canada’s Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brazil’s Barbara Seixas and Carol Solberg will battle it out for the bronze.
Third-seeded Heidrich and Verge-Depre went through the quarterfinals on a forfeit win over USA’s Alix Klineman and April Ross, who had to withdraw because of an injury. Saving their strength for the semifinal against world champs Pavan and Melissa, the Swiss pair managed to earn their spot in the gold medal match with a hard-fought 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) victory.
“We are very, very happy! I think it was a very tough opponent. They are the world champions and I think they always come back from difficult moments. So we needed to stay very focused and I think we managed that. Of course, now we will recover and then prepare for our opponents tomorrow, trying to stay focused on our game,” Anouk Verge-Depre told Volleyball World.
“I think we did our stuff really well, but they really gave us pressure with their serving. Sometimes we were a little bit too lazy with our legs, but in the end we made it and I am really happy,” Joana Heidrich added.
Ninth-seeded Sponcil and Claes had a tough quarterfinal against Netherlands’ Sanne Keizer and Madelein Meppelink, but after very tight two sets they increased the pressure in the tie-breaker to achieve a 2-1 (19-21, 22-20, 15-9) victory. In their semifinal against Brazil’s Barbara Seixas and Carol Solberg, the Americans stayed well in control on the way to a 2-0 (21-15, 21-16) win.
“We played the Brazilians in Qatar, so we had a good idea going into the match. They are a really good serving team. They make really good moves on block-defence, so we were just trying to stay patient, control what we could control and kind of chipped away. We try to do a really good job of allowing each other’s strengths to shine when we play, and we got to do that in this match,” said Claes.
“We played Meppelink and Keizer in Cancun and we lost to them, so it was fun to get back on court and have our little redemption moment. We were having a game plan against Barbara and Carol, but also strategised throughout the match. We did a good job. They switched their game plan and we tried to compromise as well. Switzerland are a great team. They made it to the final for a reason. We just need to get some sleep and recover, watch them on film and be ready for tomorrow,” added Sponcil.
Quick links:
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour - Ostrava
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Youtube