Doha, Qatar. After the pool winners in the first stage of the Katara Beach Volleyball Cup main draw were decided on Tuesday. Eight men’s teams won two matches each at Doha’s Al Gharrafa Sports Complex to advance directly to the eighthfinals of the tournament.
26-year-old Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner stormed through their Pool C matches without losing a single set and deservedly booked their spot among the last 16 of the competition. First, they hammered out a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) shutout of Canada’s Ben Saxton and Grant O’Gorman, but then had to face the team of reigning Olympic champion Alison Cerutti and his current teammate Alvaro Morais Filho, seeded third in the main draw bracket. The Czechs persevered through an extended first set to take the lead, and in the second their impenetrable blocking overwhelmed the Brazilians as Perusic and Schweiner celebrated a 2-0 (23-21, 21-15) victory.
“It always feels great to win against Brazil, especially when both players are this good, and especially when we were down the whole first set and we came back. We were really strong, I would say, but also a bit lucky. All teams in the main draw can beat each other. It will be very tough. We will have to fight really hard for each point. Let’s see what the draw will bring us,” said Schweiner.
“During the long break we focused a lot on practising, of course. Then we fixed some minor injuries. But we were not sure how we would perform, because our last tournament was in November 2019, so we are very excited that we started with two wins,” Perusic added.
The Czech duo continued with outstanding performances in the single elimination phase edging Chile and the local heroes of Qatar in the quarterfinal. This puts them in today’s semifinal where they will face the American greats Dalhausser/Lucena at 17:30 CET.
Other MEVZA teams finished with the following rankings:
17th place:
Hermannova/Slukova (CZE)
Ermacora/Pristauz (AUT)
25th place:
Schutzenhöfer/ Plesiutschnig (AUT)
Kvapilova/Kubickova (CZE)
Doppler/Horst (AUT)
Huber/Dressler (AUT)
Seidl/Waller (AUT)
33th place:
Strauss N./Strauss T. (AUT)
Manas/Sedlak (CZE)
News:
FIVB – Volleyball World
CVF – Czech Volleyball Federation
