They had just been knocked out in the eighthfinals of the Katara Beach Volleyball Cup in Doha, but were both smiling as they were leaving the premises of the Al Gharrafa Sports Complex in the Qatari capital. Spanish stars Liliana Fernandez Steiner and Elsa Baquerizo McMillan were just happy to be back on Tour again.
“It’s great! We had been hoping for this for such a long time and over a lot of months of training, training, training…” Liliana told Volleyball World. “Doha and the FIVB finally made this tournament for women and it's really great for us, because it gives us extra motivation.”
We told them that while they were out there battling it out on the sand, more World Tour events had just been announced and that put even wider smiles on their faces.
“It’s great that all these tournaments will happen. The more tournaments we get to play before the Olympics the more rhythm we will have and the better we will play for sure. So we’re happy!” Liliana reacted.
Liliana and Elsa are one of the few teams who have already secured their place on the sand courts of Tokyo 2020. They claimed their Olympic ticket at the FIVB qualification tournament in Haiyang, back in 2019.
Great save by Liliana on Doha sand“With all this pandemic around us, it was a very relaxing thought to know we have already qualified for the Olympics. We did not know if there were going to be tournaments, so being qualified was a very good thing,” Elsa said. “But it did not change our motivation on the World Tour. I think we would have qualified through the ranking anyway, but still, having the spot is very important for us.”
They prefer not to set the expectations too high ahead of their third Olympic appearance. Previously, they played at London 2012 and Rio 2016 finishing ninth on both occasions.
“It’s not good to put forward some really high expectations; just put all your work and all your heart into it. We are really willing to put all that we’ve been learning over these last three years with Seba (their coach Sebastian Menegozzo) into action. We are really happy with it and we would love to show it on the court, regardless of the result,” Liliana said.
At the Doha 4-star, Liliana, 34, and Elsa, 33, started off with a straight-set loss to Germany’s Victoria Bieneck and Isabel Schneider, but made up for it with consecutive shutouts of France’s Lezana Placette and Alexia Richard and Poland’s Kinga Wojtasik and Katarzyna Kociolek. In the eighthfinals, the Spaniards put on a fight against second-seeded Alix Klineman and April Ross, but failed to progress after losing both sets.
“I think we started very badly, but our last three matches were pretty good. We still have to keep training and correcting things, but we are happy. We are going home thinking about things we could do better, but we are happy with the results,” Elsa said. “The bubble was great and the organisation was wonderful. Thank you for making this happen for women! It’s very exciting for us!”
Spectacular dive by Elsa“We are both fighters and we have a lot of energy,” Elsa continued. “We have our ups and downs, but I think that makes us very powerful and we have to look for that in every match, because it makes us a very good team. We can be very good or very bad, so we have to look for the good.”
According to Liliana, the experience their well-seasoned partnership has accumulated gives the team the biggest advantage on the sand.
“We have very good chemistry,” she said. “12-13 years of playing together – I think that is our big strength.”
Go to: Katara Beach Volleyball Cup 2021
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