Mexicans fight through nerves to win on Olympic debut

Rio de Janeiro, August 7, 2016 – Mexico’s Lombardo Ontiveros and Juan Virgen began their Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games campaign by beating Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo 2-0 (14-21, 21-14, 15-11) at the Copacabana Beach Arena on Sunday. 

Here’s what they said after the match….

“First Olympic match, first win, it’s amazing. We were tense, shaky and anxious in the first set, but we made adjustments for the second set and the wind was super helpful for us. 

“You have to play very well and Juan’s service is amazing right now. It’s incredible, our first Olympics and we’re very happy.

“We’ll try to make some adjustments for the wind because we trained in windy conditions, but not like that.

“We said we have to try and risk more and to keep pushing, but we needed to be patient because the wind was something else.”

“In the second set we had a few chances to build up our lead at the start, but we weren’t able to. They then grew and took confidence and had trouble with our reception that they took even more confidence from that to go ahead. 

“We knew that they have been at the highest level all season, but we thought we had the means to be able to play well and we did in the first set. But in this sport things can change very quickly.”