With the last two women’s and six men’s matches of the round of 16 at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic beach volleyball tournament played on Monday at Shiokaze Park, the line-up for the quarterfinals in both genders was completed.
In the only three-setter of the day, Germany’s Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler mastered a powerful comeback against USA’s Jake Gibb and Tri Bourne to snatch the last remaining vacancy among the best eight. In the first set, the lead went back and forth, but the Americans mastered a strong finish to edge in front. An emphatic German reaction followed. Thole and Wickler dominated the second set to win it by a six-point margin and rode the momentum into the tie-breaker until Wickler hammered an off-the-block kill to close the match at 2-1 (17-21, 21-15, 15-11).
In a remake of the 2019 FIVB World Championship final, Thole and Wickler will try to get back at world champs Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy of ROC on Wednesday.
The other four men’s quarterfinalists who emerged on Monday were Latvia’s Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs, ROC’s Ilya Leshukov and Konstantin Semenov, Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo and Brazil’s Alison Cerutti and Alvaro Filho.
April Ross and Alix Klineman claimed a spot among the best eight of the women’s competition to challenge Germany’s Laura Ludwig and Margareta Kozuch in the next round. Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes snatched the last remaining vacancy to go against Australia’s Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy for a berth in the semifinals.
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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