All semifinalists of the first Sofia 1-star stop on FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 2021 emerged on Saturday. Women’s pairs from Austria, Cyprus, USA and Venezuela, as well as two men’s teams from Poland and one each from Portugal and Russia will battle it out for the medals in the Bulgarian capital on Sunday.
Seed #13 in the women’s main draw, Cyprus’s Daria Gusarova and Erika Nystrom, and 10th-seeded Alexandra Wheeler and Corinne Quiggle of USA started their way on Sofia sand in Thursday’s qualifications and continued their successful path to make the last four of the tournament.
On Saturday, Gusarova and Nystrom started their day with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-19) shutout of Angjeny Tolentino and Leandra Savonije of Netherlands Antilles and followed up with a tight 2-1 (21-12, 16-21, 20-18) quarterfinal victory over Lithuania’s Ieva Dumbauskaite and Gerda Grudzinskaite. In the first semifinal on Sunday, the Cypriots will go against second-seeded Norisbeth Isais Agudo Gonzalez and Gabriela Brito, who also went through two successful games on Saturday, 2-0 (21-13, 21-14) against Ukraine’s Maryna Hladun and Svitlana Baburina and 2-0 (21-10, 21-16) against Poland’s Aleksandra Gromadowska and Kinga Legieta.
Wheeler and Quiggle, who skipped the first elimination round as pool winners, mastered a 2-0 (21-12, 21-9) quarterfinal win over Dutch qualifiers Annemieke Driessen and Iris Reinders. In the semis, the Americans will meet third-seeded Austrians Dorina Klinger and Ronja Klinger, who persevered through a tough quarterfinal battle with Israel’s Anita Dave and Sofia Starikov to claim a 2-1 (21-11, 16-21, 18-16) victory.
Poland’s Maciej Rudol and Jakub Nowak, seeded 10th in the men’s main draw, had a big day on Saturday as they snatched the victories in three hard-fought matches. First, they survived in the third-place match of their Pool B to manage a narrow 2-0 (23-21, 21-19) win over Bulgarian aces Georgi Bratoev and Miroslav Gradinarov. Then they upset the top seeds of the tournament, Iran’s Bahman Salemiinjehboroun and Arash Vakili, by 2-1 (21-17, 17-21, 15-10). And finally, they came back from a set down to claim a 2-1 (18-21, 21-18, 15-10) win over third-seeded Russians Petr Bakhnar and Valeriy Samoday.
In the first men’s semifinal on Sunday, Rudol and Nowak will meet ninth-seeded Joao Pedrosa and Hugo Campos of Portugal. The Portuguese have yet to lose a match in Sofia, after winning two qualifiers, both their pool matches, including a 2-1 (21-13, 15-21, 15-11) three-setter against Salemi and Vakili, and their 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) quarterfinal against second-seeded Iranians Rahman Raoufi and Abolhamed Mirzaali.
Another Polish duo, seventh-seeded Jedrzej Brozyniak and Piotr Janiak, reached the semifinals after winning Pool B on a 2-0 (23-21, 21-15) upset of Raoufi and Mirzaali and a tight 2-1 (15-21, 21-17, 17-15) quarterfinal turnaround against Austrian qualifiers Florian Schnetzer and Lorenz Petutschnig.
Aleksandr Kramarenko and Maksim Hudyakov will get in the way of Brozyniak and Janiak in the semis. On Saturday, the fifth-seeded Russians delivered a 2-0 (21-15, 21-15) shutout of the highest seeded home team, Dimitar Mehandzhiyski and Dimitar Vasilev, to win Pool D, and a 2-0 (21-13, 21-15) shutout of Canadian qualifiers William Hoey and Jake MacNeil in the quarterfinals.
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FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
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