Maceió, Brazil, February 27, 2016 - Will it be a Brazilian swept of the US$150,000 Maceió Open podium or will Americans Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena break-through to land one of the three spots when the medals are awarded here mid-day Sunday for the FIVB World Tour event on the Pajuçara courts in front of the Hotel Enseada.
With the Brazilian pairs of Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg, Vitor Felipe/Alvaro Filho and Saymon Barbosa/Gustavo Carvalhaes posting quarter-final wins over teams from Mexico and Poland, the second-seeded Dalhausser and Lucena rallied from a first-set setback to score a 2-1 (19-21, 21-9, 15-4) win in 45 minutes over Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri of Italy to advance to their seventh FIVB World Tour semi-final in 10 international events together.
“We started slow, but we finished strong,” said the 36-year old Dalhausser. “The Italians are a tough team and played very well in the first set. We did not execute our game plan very well in the first set, but got it going in the second set.” Lucena said that the Italians are a “difficult team to play as Alex is great at the net and Adrian is a terrific server.”
The Americans will be challenged by the 11th-seeded Vitor and Alvaro, who advanced to their first-ever FIVB World Tour “final four” as the Maceió Open is their eighth international appearance together. Vitor and Alvaro scored their fifth-straight win over the event by eliminating eighth-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel of Poland 2-1 (18-21, 12-16, 15-10) in a 62-minute quarter-final match.
The All-Brazilian semi-final will be the second meeting on the FIVB World Tour as Guto and Saymon defeated Evandro and Pedro last September at the Rio Open with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) elimination bracket match in 35 minutes. “We’ll be looking for some revenge,” said Pedro, who is seeded first in the Maceió Open with Evandro.
Evandro and Pedro advanced to their fifth FIVB World Tour semi-final in 12 international starts with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-15) quarter-final win in 45 minutes. The 28-seeded Saymon and Gustavo took down the second Polish pair in quarter-finals with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) win in 34 minutes over 15th-seeded Piotr Kantor and /Bartosz Losiak.
The Maceió Open concludes with the medal matches for both men and women on Sunday where the gold medal teams will share the $11,000 first-place prize. Following the Maceió Open, the FIVB World Tour will take a week off before resuming competition March 8-13 on famed Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, the first grand slam event on the 2015-2016 international Beach Volleyball calendar with an $800,000 purse.