Mangaung, South Africa, December 11, 2014 - USA’s Nick Lucena and Theo Brunner topped their pool on Thursday with a 2-0 (21-13, 21-15) win over rivals Jan Dumek and Robert Kufa from the Czech Republic at the FIVB World Tour Beach Volleyball Mangaung Open in Bloemfontein, South Africa. But they were not really smiling afterwards.
“We haven’t won anything yet”, said Lucena. “It’s an important tournament for us. We have a goal and want to go to that goal and until then we won’t be happy. I want to go to the final.” Brunner added: “We are happy we got this, but a new tournament starts tomorrow.”
Brunner, a 2.01-meter tall blocker, was moved around a lot by the Czech players. Dumek and Kufa used quick sets, step-arounds and attacks on two to confuse Brunner. But when Brunner didn’t get it, Lucena was there to dig the ball of the sand.
“Actually I struggled with it at first”, Brunner said. “But I love when people do that, because I used to be a middle blocker and it it’s just natural for me. People can do that all day. It keeps me entertained. I like it.”
Playing the Czechs was their first real challenge after two easy wins over Israel and South Africa on the first day of main draw. “It was the toughest match for sure so far”, Lucena said. “They are both good ball control players. On hard packed sand they can hit the ball and move it around. It was tough, but Theo did a great job blocking it. But it’s only going to get harder.”
Mangaung is the starting point for a new partnership between the 35-year old Lucena and 29-year old Brunner. “We are looking forward to making a run towards the Olympics and Theo is, I think, one of the best blockers for the US by far. So I am excited”, Lucena said. “We played two years ago on the domestic tour. So this was a plan going forward for a while.”
Asked about who is going to keep them from the podium Brunner answered: “There’s a bunch of teams here that can win. Especially when it’s windy, you never really know, but obviously the Dutch team (Nummerdor/Varenhorst), they are real good. So we are hoping they win their pool so we don’t meet them till finals. But there’s some other great teams as well.”
Lucena added: “As long as we focus on our side, I think we will be ok. We are pretty strong at scoring points. We should focus on passing and setting. But we have been doing good so far.”
Besides a gold medal Brunner has another wish: “I really want to do the cheetah experience here in Mangaung. Maybe in the weekend or on Monday before we go. I have not been able to, but I really want to do a safari.” Mangaung means place of cheetahs in the local language Sesotho.