Canada’s Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes and Switzerland’s Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Heidrich were the first teams to advance to the last 16 of the women’s Olympic beach volleyball tournament at Tokyo 2020. On the men’s side, the same did Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum and Ilya Leshukov and Konstantin Semenov of ROC.
The second leg of the pool stage started with Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes’s straight-set win over Julia Sude and Karla Borger. In a Pool A fixture, the Canadians produced a 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) shutout of their German opponents. Later in the day, Switzerland’s Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Heidrich also managed to snatch a 2-0 (22-20, 21-18) victory over Netherlands’ Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon, after winning set one on a seven-point run from 15-20.
With the pairs from Canada and Switzerland leading the pool standings on a 2-0 win-loss record each, they became the first teams to secure their spots in the eighthfinals of the tournament, while the duos from Germany and Japan will have to battle it out with each other for the third place in the final pool standings.
Ilya Leshukov and Konstantin Semenov cruised to their second win in men’s Pool A with a clean slate. They mastered a 2-0 (21-14, 21-16) shutout of Australia’s Christopher McHugh and Damien Schumann. In the last match of the day, FIVB World Ranking leaders Anders Mol and Christian Sorum managed a 2-0 (21-17, 24-22) victory over Spain’s Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira, after recovering from a five-point deficit in the second set.
Both Leshukov and Semenov and Mol and Sorum have two wins each on their records and will lock horns with each other to distribute the top two spots in the pool standings. The Spaniards and the Australians will have to engage in a do-or-die clash for the third place.
Find out more:
Today’s recap of the women’s competition
Today’s recap of the men’s competition
Quick links:
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Schedule and results
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Beach volleyball
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour
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