When a team secures an unexpected result on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, many can see it as a stroke of luck. If another good finish follows, then there’s probably more to it than just good fortune.
That’s what Dutch Stefan Boermans and Yorick De Groot have been showing during the last two tournaments of the Cancun Hub. After failing to advance from the qualifier in the first event at Playa Delfines, the Europeans not only turned that corner in the second, but also secured a fifth place.
On Thursday, the first day of the main draw of the third and final tournament in Mexico, they won a pair of matches and positioned themselves just another victory away from matching last week’s fifth place finish.
The 26-year-old Boermans, who has been playing beach volleyball for only three years, and the 20-year-old De Groot started the day with a strong 2-0 (24-22, 21-13) victory over Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl. In the evening, they ousted Canada’s Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter 2-1 (20-22, 21-18, 15-13) to top pool D and advance to the Round of 16.
“In the first week we were kind of adjusting,” De Groot commented. “In the Netherlands, we could only train inside and there’s the heat and the wind for us to handle here. Once we got more used to it we started having fun and playing better. We were excited by finishing fifth lat week but knew it would be difficult to do it in this tournament again because we started in qualification again, but we’re doing great and here we are.”
De Groot faces Pedlow's block in the final match of Pool DThe events in Cancun can be seen as a sort of breakthrough for the Dutch as even though Boermans already has two World Tour medals (including one gold) to his name, neither of them had ever competed in a 4-star tournament before their trip to Cancun.
After these last two weeks, opponents will certainly look at them differently.
“It’s not only about the respect,” Boermans added. “It’s important for us too, to see what we can do and set our goals for the future. We talk about playing at the Paris Olympics, but until two weeks ago we didn’t even know how realistic that was. In these last two weeks we’ve been defeating teams we both really look up to and that feels great. But we have got to keep fighting, to keep pushing and then we see how far we can go.”
Van de Velde and Varenhorst were another Dutch team to win their pool in CancunBoermans and De Groot weren't the only Dutch team to win their pool in the third tournament in Cancun as Christiaan Varenhorst and Steven van de Velde finished atop of Pool F after they defeated Spanish veterans Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira 2-0 (21-12, 21-15).
Russians Konstantin Semenov and Ilya Leshukov denied the Netherlands the chance of having all their three teams as pool winners as they defeated Olympic medallists Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen 2-0 (21-15, 21-16) to top Group G.
Italians Carambula and Rossi are also in the Round of 16The other five pool winners of the third tournament in Cancun were Brazil's Alison Cerutti/Alvaro Filho, USA's Jake Gibb/Taylor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, Poland's Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak and Italy's Adrian Carambula/Enrico Rossi.
Pool play will be completed for the men on Friday with the matches between the teams that lost their opening main draw games in the morning. The elimination round starts in the afternoon and matches for both the Round of 24 and the Round of 16 are scheduled.
All matches in Cancun are streamed live on the Beach Volleyball World Youtube channel. Subscribe, log in and set reminders to receive notifications when streams begin.
Go to:
Cancun Hub - 3rd event
Cancun Hub - 3rd event - Match schedule
Provisional Olympic ranking - Men
Provisional Olympic ranking - Women
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