The Hague, the Netherlands, June 15, 2013 – Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl came all the way from qualification to reach the semifinals of the Transavia The Hague Grand Slam on Saturday. The Austrian team defeated Poland’s Michal Kadziola and Jakub Szalankiewicz in three sets (15-21 21-17 15-11) in the quarterfinal.
In their first Grand Slam semifinal they will play the Corrientes champions Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs. The Latvian team beat Austria’s Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst in two sets (21-19 21-17).
Lots of serving errors in the first setHuber and Seidl had a tough first set against Poland. “We had to find our rhythm in this heavy wind”, Huber explained. “The Polish picked it up a bit quicker than we did.” Due to the rotating strong wind it was difficult to even toss the ball for the serve and the Austrians made a lot of serving errors. “After the first set we decided to reduce the risk on our serving a bit and that turned out to be a good plan.”
Huber (27) and Seidl (23) have been playing together since 2009, but made great progress this year, claiming the bronze medal at the Fuzhou Open at the start of the season. “We made some changes, new coaches, new training facilities”, Huber said. “And I think we are also more grown up now.”
They would have loved an all-Austrian semifinal against Doppler/Horst, but are ready to face Latvia. Seidl: “They are not too tall like us as well. We’re looking forward to it, but it will be tough as they are good in windy conditions too.”
Brazil and Poland in other
semifinal Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek
and Mariusz Prudel prevented an all-Brazilian semifinal by defeating Brazil’s
Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego in three sets (21-16 18-21 16-14). World Cup
winners Alison and Emanuel had a chance to win the match at 14-13, but failed
to do so. Brazil’s Pedro Solberg and
Bruno Oscar Schmidt overpowered USA’s top team Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson in
the second set of their quarterfinal (21-18 21-10). “I was very lucky with my
serve in the second set”, Bruno said. “I could use the wind to my advantage. In
the first I struggled, but luckely Pedro was totally focussed at the net and
saved us. He made the difference in the first set.”FIVB Transavia Grand Slam tournament page Twitter: @FIVB Volleyball
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