Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 12, 2016 - For the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai are the top Italian men’s team as the veteran pair posted a two-set win here late Friday night over compatriots Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri to guarantee the European country a fifth place finish in the Copacabana quadrennial.
After winning only once in three pool play matches and netting a berth in the 16-team elimination bracket 24 hours earlier with a win over a Polish pair, Lupo and Nicolai advanced to the quarter-finals with a 2-0 (21-12, 23-21) win over Carambula and Ranghieri in a 43-minute match.
It was Lupo and Nicolai’s first win in two international meetings with their Italian rivals. The win also guaranteed Lupo and Nicolai at least a fifth-place finish in Olympic competition after the tandem reached the quarter-finals in the London 2012 Summer Games together before being ousted by Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuill of The Netherlands.
With the win, Lupo and Nicolai will meet in the quarter-finals the winners from the match between Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg of Brazil and Dmitri Barsouk/Nikita Liamin of Russia.
