Mangaung, South Africa, December 12, 2014 – Esteban and Marco Grimalt made their family and coach proud by securing another semifinal spot at the FIVB World Tour Beach Volleyball Mangaung Open on Friday. In doing so they eliminated second seeded Americans Nick Lucena and Theo Brunner in the quarterfinals.
In a thrilling three-setter with lots of rallies and four match points the Grimalts, silver medallists in Parana, ended up on top: 21-15, 16-21, 18-16.
The cousins, who reached the quarterfinals with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) win over Italy’s Caminati/Rossi, had a flying start on centre court by winning the first set easily.
The Americans came back strong winning the second and in the tiebreak it was point-by-point till 13-13. Chili got the first match point, but a big block by Brunner prevented an early win for the cousins. The Americans then failed to cash in on a match point of their own and at the Grimalts third match point Brunner handed them the victory by hitting the ball out.
“We thought we could do it”, said the youngest cousin, 23-year old Esteban Grimalt. “But we knew it would be difficult against USA. We are still young and mentally we are not always that strong, but we did it.”
“We are so proud and thankful for the support of our family and our coach. He couldn’t come with us because we didn’t have the money, but he is a very important part of this.”
Last year the Grimalts started training with Brazilian coach Carlos Garrido, who played on the FIVB World Tour in the 1990s and collected six podium placements during his international beach volleyball career.
The cousins come from a big volleyball family, both their fathers and five other uncles played on the national team. Two of the uncles played beach as well. “And we are proud that we can make them proud and happy”, said Esteban.
Besides the family support the Chilean Olympic Association is backing them up as well, but they don’t have any sponsors, so it’s hard to fund their travels on the World Tour.
“This is our first complete season”, said Esteban. “Last year we played four or five tournaments.” Their progress this year, the Grimalts finished 9th place at the grand slams in The Hague and Klagenfurt and won silver at the Parana Open, is the result of hard work and all the things coach Garrido is teaching them, he said.
“We are very happy with this result. We trained so hard this year and now we finish this season great with another semifinal. But first it’s time to focus on the next match.”
The Grimalts' opponents in the semifinal on Saturday are Sebastian Fuchs and Thomas Kaczmarek. Like the Chileans the Germans made it to the semifinals in Parana too, but missed out on the podium.
In the Rose Garden Park stadium they will get a second chance to win a medal.
“We finished 4th in Parana, so now we will definitely try to make it to the podium”, Kaczmarek said.
“When you reach the semis and finish 4th, that is the worst place. We played a good tournament in Parana, but the feeling was bad afterwards. So now we will be happy to grab any medal here and take it home.”
Barely making it out of the pool with only one win, the Germans grew in the tournament. “In the pool we played bad”, Kaczmarek said. “But the final rounds started and we stepped up.”
On Friday they first eliminated Parana Open winner Josh Binstock and his temporary partner Maverick Hatch (21-16, 23-21) to book another 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) win over Israel’s Sean Faiga and Ariel Hilman.
Kaczmarek: “It was tough. Today it was very hot and we played some tough matches, but we did it.” In their first match of the day they got kind of a lucky break because Binstock played with a back injury, but they played a solid game against the Israeli, who reached a personal milestone with a 5th place finish in Parana and now equalled that result.
“They beat Spain (Marco/Garcia) in the second round”, Kaczmarek said. “But we played our volleyball and then we should win every match against them. It was hard though, because we really wanted to win, to go to the semifinals again. There was a bit of pressure on our side.”
Nummerdor/Varenhorst take on Krou/Rowlandson
In the other semifinal Sao Paulo Grand Slam champions Reinder Nummerdor and Christiaan Varenhorst will take on Youssef Krou and Edouard Rowlandson from France.
The top seeded Dutch team had two tough matches on Friday against Austria’s Eglseer/Müllner (11-21, 21-17, 15-10) and Greece’s Kotsilianos/Zoupani (21-14, 15-21, 15-12), but are still on track for another gold.
Krou and Rowlandson, who won gold in Xiamen and bronze in Doha this year, eased their way into the semifinals with straight wins over USA’s Montgomery/Casebeer (21-12, 21-18) and Canadian qualifiers Dearing/May (21-19, 21-15).