Doppler & Horst back on Tour, back in the game

After missing the previous four 4-star tournaments on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, three-time Olympians Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst appeared in Wednesday’s qualifications at the J&T Banka Ostrava Beach Open 2021 to win two tough matches and advance to the main draw.

The Austrian duo, seeded third in the qualification bracket, were one of two Austrian pairs among a total of eight to fill the available spots in the 32-team men’s main draw.

Doppler and Horst started off by winning a very set, extended to a total of 70 rallies against Italy’s Marco Viscovich and Alex Ranghieri before they could take a 2-0 (36-34, 21-18) victory.

“We didn’t have a lot of matches this year, so I think only in that first set I played more balls than in the last half a year,” 40-year-old Doppler told Volleyball World. “I think we need to find a little bit of rhythm and play a lot of matches to get the right feel again and compete against the best teams in the world. The qualifiers are something new for us, so we are really happy to be in the main draw again and maybe have a long tournament ahead of us.”

In the deciding second qualification round, the Austrians had a tough three-set encounter with USA’s Theodore Brunner and Chaim Schalk, but emerged victorious again, 2-1 (21-18, 17-21, 15-13).

“When I saw the draw I thought that was not the best draw for us, either Brazil or the USA,” 38-year-old Horst added. “We played the Americans lots of times before, but never together, because one of them was Canadian. We knew it would be tough and it was tough, but in the end we were happy to win. The past few weeks were not that easy for us. First, we were sick, then injured, so we didn’t play a lot this year. The only tournament was Doha, so the expectations for this tournament were not that high and now we are really happy that we could make it through the qualifiers.”

Second-seeded Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller, also of Austria, claimed a spot in the main draw after a speedy 2-0 (21-9, 21-12) win over South Africa’s Jerome Fredericks and Leo Williams, followed up by a tough 2-1 (21-16, 15-21, 15-12) three-setter against Switzerland’s Quentin Metral and Yves Haussener.

Swedish teens David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig had a very tough Wednesday on the Ostrava sand, but made it through to the main draw after two tie-breaker victories. First, they came back from a set down against Norway’s Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen to celebrate with a nail-biting 2-1 (16-21, 24-22, 21-19) win. Then, they knocked out fourth-seeded Austrians Julian Horl and Moritz Pristauz by 2-1 (21-18, 16-21, 15-11).

17th-seeded Jakob Windisch and Samuele Cottafava of Italy produced a 2-0 (21-19, 21-12) upset of top-seeded Brazilians Gustavo Carvalhaes and Arthur Mariano, after a 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) shutout of Germany’s Philipp Arne Bergmann and Yannick Harms.

Dutchmen Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot, seeded 10th, eliminated Switzerland’s Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson, who had a shot at making the cut for the Olympics until that point, in a 2-0 (21-17, 21-15) straight-setter.

In their deciding match, Canada’s Ben Saxton and Grant O'Gorman, seeded 12th, lost the first set to fifth-seeded Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer of Switzerland, but fought their way back to a 2-1 (15-21, 22-20, 15-12) victory.

Cesar Menendez Ortego and Alejandro Huerta Pastor of Spain, number 25 in the seeding, were the lowest ranked team to move successfully through the qualifications, after shutting out eighth-seeded Belgians Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle and Russia’s Daniil Kuvichka and Anton Kislytsyn.

The last match of the day was a three-setter, in which sixth-seeded Nikita Liamin and Taras Myskiv of Russia snatched a 2-1 (21-18, 15-21, 15-8) victory over Germany’s Lukas Pfretzschner and Robin Sowa.

Quick links:
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour - Ostrava
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
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