Dutch Challenge Brazilians for Moscow Grand Slam Gold
Moscow, Russia, May 30, 2015 - After claiming the third spot on the Moscow Grand Slam podium last year, The Netherlands’ Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel will be seeking gold in the Russian capital as the Dutch joined top-seeded Talita Antunes and Larissa Franca in netting semi-final wins here Saturday.
While the seventh-seeded Meppelink and Van Iersel only had to play once Saturday with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) win in 38-minute semi-final win over 13th-seeded Marta Menegatti and Viktoria Orsi Toth of Italy, Talita and Larissa had to play a postponed match from Friday evening in the morning before conquering a Chinese team in the late afternoon at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Center courts.
Seeking their fifth-straight title on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour after forming their partnership last July, Talita and Larissa opened play Saturday with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-16) quarter-final win in 34 minutes over ninth-seeded Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez of Spain.
In the semi-finals opposite of 10th-seeded Fan Wang and Yuan Yu, the Talita and Larissa posted a 2-0 (21-13, 23-21) win in 33 minutes over the Chinese. Wang and Yue defeated 30th-seeded Carolina Horta and Liliane Maestrini of Brazil 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) in 35 minutes in their opening match Saturday morning.
With heavy rains and thunderstorms postponing the final two quarter-final matches Friday evening to Saturday morning, Talita and Larissa’s match against Baquerizo and Liliana actually started Friday evening with Spain winning the first set and Brazil leading 7-4 in the second set when the match was stopped due to lightning.
With the Italians playing the Chinese for the bronze medal Sunday, the Dutch team will be looking for their first win over Talita and Larissa as the Brazilians posted a 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) win over Meppelink and Van Iersel last August in the Polish Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki.
The Moscow Grand Slam is the seventh FIVB World Tour event for Talita and Larissa, who posted ninths in their first two international starts together before winning four-straight titles with podium toppers in Austria (Klagenfurt), Poland, Brazil (São Paulo) and Argentina (Paraná).
The Dutch “M&M” girls will be playing in their second FIVB World Tour final as Meppelink and Van Iersel finished second two weeks ago in Switzerland where they dropped the title match to a German team in three-sets. Meppelink does have a gold medal performance against Brazilian team as she and Sophie van Gestel defeated Maria Antonelli and Agatha Bednarczuk in a 2013 “Open” event in Corrientes, Argentina. It was the only gold meeting between the two countries on the FIVB World Tour.
The first “big” event on the 2015 FIVB World Tour, the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam continues through Sunday when the medal matches for both men and women will be played. The winning teams in each gender will share the $57,000 first-place prize along with gathering 800 points that count towards qualifying for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
After this week’s event, the FIVB World Tour’s first “Major Series” stops are set for Croatia (Poreč, June 1-7) and Norway (Stavanger, June 8-14) before international circuit crosses the Atlantic for the final world championship “tune up” in the United States for the St. Petersburg Grand Slam in Florida (June 15-21).
The FIVB ‘senior” Beach Volleyball World Championships will begin June 26 with competition be held at four sites in The Netherlands. With medal matches for both genders being held in The Hague, the women’s podium placement contests will be July 4 with the men the next day.