Czechia’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner will take on Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum in Sunday’s gold medal match at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals in Cagliari. Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo and Netherlands’ Christiaan Varenhorst and Steven van de Velde will lock horns for the bronze.
To make it to Saturday evening’s semifinals, Nicolai and Lupo produced a powerful 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) win over Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen in one of the quarterfinals earlier in the afternoon. Inspired by the local fans on the stands, the Italians started well against Perusic and Schweiner. They won the first set and battled on in the second, but the Czechs persevered through the tough times and came back to claim a 2-1 (17-21, 21-19, 15-10) victory.
“It’s hard to say something! It’s amazing!” exclaimed Perusic. “We didn’t expect it all. All the teams we played are super strong. They made it to the Finals and they really are the best of the best. We are super excited to be in the final. The Italian guys played really well today. They are really strong. They put a lot of pressure on us with their serves. We were struggling a bit with the block-defence system. What helped is win was partially luck and partially the fact that we didn’t give up and fought to the end.”
“Every match so far was very difficult. We had to fight for every ball and it is not going to be any different in the final,” Schweiner told Volleyball World.
Varenhorst and Van de Velde were very close to having a fabulous day. They started it with a hard-fought 2-1 (21-19, 15-21, 16-14) quarterfinal victory over the number one team in the FIVB World Ranking, Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar. In the semifinals, they had to face another powerful opponent, Olympic champions Mol and Sorum. They dominated the first set and cruised on to a 15-10 lead in the second, but this is when the Vikings started mounting a terrific comeback. Between Sorum’s elegant hits and Mol’s impenetrable blocks, the Norwegians powered on to snatch a 2-1 (16-21, 21-18, 15-13) win and advance to the gold medal match.
“Anders played amazing. He made some good serves and some great blocks towards the end of the second set. And that’s really impressive, because he was so tired and when things were not working for so long he was able to turn around and make some important points. That’s huge! I’m really impressed by this guy once again,” Sorum told Volleyball World.
“It’s always a battle against the Czechs. We know them very well. They are great guys and for sure it’s going to be a great match to watch. Almost every time we play tiebreaks against them, so we expect a battle and we are looking forward to it,” added Mol.
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FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals
CVF – Czech Volleyball
