Myslowice, Poland, June 13, 2014 – Italy’s Marco Caminati and Enrico Rossi surprised friends and foes on Friday by reaching the last 16 at the FIVB Beach Volleyball U23 World Championships.
The Italian debutants defeated the 9th seeded and far more experienced Fabian Kandolf and Christoph Dressler from Austria in the first knockout round (25-23, 21-16).
In the morning Caminati and Rossi, seeded 33rd, had won their final pool match against St. Lucia’s Caesar/Faulkner (21-5, 21-14) and reached the elimination phase as number 4 in their pool.
Caminati had never participated in an international event before, Rossi only played the CEV U22 last year with a different partner. The 20-year old Rossi had never even played volleyball till two years ago. Before he had pursued a career in football, playing semi-professional.
“My father always played beach volleyball with friends, so that’s how I got started”, said Rossi. “We really did not have any expectations coming here, but we had hoped we would do well.”
“It was a hard match against the Austrians, but we played very well. We had a good fighting spirit. Our service and tactics helped us to win today. We targeted the short player (Kandolf) and kept attacking through the middle.”
Their opponents in the second round on Saturday are Brazil’s Allison Cittadin Francioni and Gustavo Albrecht Carvalhaes. “That is going to be very difficult”, concluded Rossi.
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