Myslowice, Poland, June 9 – Brazil’s Eduarda Santos Lisbao and Thais Rodrigues Ferreira needed six match points, but eventually beat Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Taylor Pischke 2-1 (21-18, 15-21, 23-21) to reach the women’s gold medal match at the inaugural FIVB U23 Beach Volleyball World Championships.
At the end both teams dropped to the sand in exhaustion following a match that lasted an hour under a hot sun.
In the tie-break the Canadians had fought back from an 11-8 deficit to have the first chance to win the match at 14-13, but the Brazilians saved and then failed to convert their first match point at 15-14. Eventually after the Canadians had missed two more chances to win the match, an overhit shot from Pischke gave the Brazilians victory.
Victoria Bieneck and Isabell Schneider will be awaiting the Brazilians after they enjoyed a more straightforward 2-0 (21-9, 21-14) win against the Czech Republic’s Eliska Galova and Adela Machova.
Polish and Brazilians set up final clash
Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak will take on Brazilians Vitor Goncalves Felipe and Marcio Guadie Ley in the men’s gold-medal match after both men’s semifinals went to a tie-break.
After winning the first set Kantor and Losiak allowed Lorenz Petutschnig and Tobias Winter back into the match in the second set and while the Poles saved four set points, the Austrians held their nerve.
In the tie-break they teams traded points before Kantor and Losiak built up a lead and then held Petutschnig and Winter at arm’s-length to win.
Vitor Felipe and Marcio beat Rihards Finsters and Aleksandrs Solovejs 2-1 (21-17, 16-21, 15-9) to ensure that double Brazilian gold remains a possibility.
Thirty-two teams per gender took place in the main draw of the inaugural FIVB U23 Beach Volleyball World Championships. The main draw started on June 6 and the tournament runs through until Sunday, June 9 when both the men’s and women’s finals take place.
Myslowice, located 70km from Poland’s ancient capital Krakow, is hosting an FIVB age-group tournament for the third time, after successfully hosting the U19 and U21 version in 2006 and 2007.
It has also regularly hosted stops on the FIVB World Tour – the first tournament was a women-only tournament in 2008, as was the 2011 event. In 2009, 2010 and 2012 it was the men who lit up the sand.