They might have taken the long route, but Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov are in the Round of 16 of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 4-star event in Gstaad after the Russians won a pair of matches on Thursday to remain alive in the tournament in the Swiss Alps.
The reigning world champions, Stoyanovskiy and Krasilnikov had a bumpy debut on Wednesday, falling to Austrians Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller. After that setback, every match in Gstaad turned into an elimination encounter.
The Russians were agonizingly close to being knocked out in pool play, but fought back to prevail over Germans Alexander Walkenhorst and Sven Winter in a nail-biting three-set (14-21, 21-19, 22-20) match.
Krasilnikov hits during their morning match against the GermansThat victory set up a Round of 24 meeting with fellow Russians and fellow Olympians to-be Konstantin Semenov and Ilya Leshukov. More solid than in the morning, Stoyanovskiy and Krasilnikov got the job done pulling out a 2-0 (21-14, 22-20) win that put them in the Round of 16, where they will meet Pool E winners Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins, who had the day off.
All other Round of 16 matches will feature a pool winner and a team that advanced from the Round of 24. Pool A winners Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway will face the home team of Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson, who advanced with a 2-0 (21-12, 21-14) win over USA’s Theo Brunner and Chaim Schalk.
Heidrich and Gerson celebrate a pointFellow Swiss pair Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer, who won Pool H, now know their opponents. They will be Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak, who eliminated Dutch Olympic medallists Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen with a 2-1 (14-21, 21-19, 15-12) win.
Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan eliminated Brazilians Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes and Arthur Mariano with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) and will now face Poland’s Grzergorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl. Seidl and Waller also moved on, downing Latvia’s Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs in two sets (21-18, 21-17), and will clash with Brazil’s Evandro Goncalves and Bruno Schmidt.
Two teams that started the tournament in the qualifier will also play each other as Norway’s Hendrik Mol/Mathias Berntsen secured the right to play Russia’s Nikita Liamin/Taras Myskiv with their three-set (18-21, 21-18, 17-15) win over Canada’s Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter.
The final Round of 24 winners were two German teams, Nils Ehlers/Lars Fluggen and Julius Thole/Clemens Wickler, who prevailed over the Netherlands’ Christiaan Varenhorst/Steven van de Velde 2-0 (21-16, 22-20) and USA’s Tri Bourne/Trevor Crabb also in two sets (21-19, 25-23) respectively. They will now play Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira and the Netherlands’ Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot.
Friday will be the penultimate day of competition for the men in Gstaad and will feature the Round of 16 and the quarterfinals. The semifinals and medal matches are scheduled for Saturday.
Quick links:
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour - Gstaad
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
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