Austrian women strike back and move to the eight-final

Photo: BeachMajorSeries/ACTS

After the Austrians Lena Plesiutschnig and Katharina Schützenhöfer lost their second pool play match on Wednesday evening, they regained their strength and surprised the home crowd with a smooth 21-16, 21-19 win against the Greek Vasiliki Arvaniti and Penny Karagouni. With the success, the home team secured a place in the round of 16 of the A1 CEV EuroBeachVolley Vienna 2021 presented by Swatch.

“It’s a great feeling,” said Schützenhöfer. “We are really proud of the way we played today. We were extremely focused on our schedule and I think we did really well. We are super happy that we made it through to the round of 16.”

The most important thing, according to the 27-year-old defender, was to quickly tick off the defeat to the Ukrainian twins Inna and Iryna Makhno and concentrate on the next challenge at the Red Bull Beach Arena.

“Today we tried to focus on one new game,” she added. “We wanted to forget the bad things and focus on the good things and I think we did it really well.”

Photo: BeachMajorSeries/ACTS

In the round of the last sixteen, the Austrians will meet the German Chantal Laboreur and Cinja Tillmann. As guaranteed ninth in Vienna, the two are only one victory away from the quarter-finals, which would mean their best placement at this tournament.

“If we play our best beach volleyball, we can get to the top,” said Plesiutschnig. “We’ll focus on our game, do it point by point, and then see how it goes.”

Photo: BeachMajorSeries/ACTS

The other seven women’s teams that reached the round of 16 were the German teams Sandra Ittlinger / Kim Behrens and Victoria Bieneck / Isabel Schneider, the Dutch Raisa Schoon / Katja Stam, the Spaniards Paula Soria / Maria Carro, the Swiss Esmee Böbner / Zoé Vergé- Dépré, the Czechs Barbora Hermannová / Marie-Sara Stochlová and the Poles Kinga Wojtasik / Katarzyna Kociolek.

News:
A1 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship
ÖVV – Volleyball Austria