Rio de Janeiro, August 6, 2016 – Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas began their Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games campaign by coming from a set down to beat the Czech Republic’s Marketa Slukova and Barbara Hermannova 2-1 (19-21, -14, 21-13) at the Copacabana Beach Arena on Saturday.
Here’s what they said after the match….
Barbara Seixas, Brazil
“It was great, I’m really happy. I think at the beginning we were a little bit anxious about playing at home and we were trying to do everything we did in training on the court. We had some difficulties because the Czech team has a great service and they were always pushing us through the match.
“I think Agatha helped me a lot and we were more patient in the second set and the tie-break. I manged to do some really good blocks and it meant we were able to make the side-outs better.
“The crowd was amazing and spectacular and I hope that in every game we play here they have the same energy in this beautiful arena, full of beautiful people.”
Barbara Hermannova, Czech Republic
“We lost, we are a little bit disappointed, but on the other hand we were fighting very hard for every ball and we played with this team this year already four times, and it's always like this. We are fighting like this, very close sets and either we play in three sets or it is very close.
"So we know each other a little bit and I think it was only about a few mistakes that we did in one set. This is a very, very good team and they had like a third player on the court with this big crowd. This support is amazing for Brazil. So they were a little bit better today.
“I think we’re going to have a chat with our coach about what happened on the court and talk with our coach about the mistakes we made on the court.”