Rio de Janeiro, August 11, 2016 – Brazil’s Pedro Salgado and Evandro Goncalves won their final pool match at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games 2-1 (21-16, 20-22, 15-7) against Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins at Copacabana Beach Arena on Thursday. It sends the Brazilians through to the elimination rounds and means the Latvians exit the competition.
Here’s what they said after the match…
Pedro Salgado, Brazil
“We had a bad start (at the Games) and now we are playing well and we are just trying to maintain our rhythm and focus. Our defense was better today and now we got the victory. We are qualified.”
Evandro Goncalves, Brazil
“We knew from what other people were saying that it was going to be difficult and maybe we weren't supposed to win.
“We have learned from defeats and as much as we have the chance we are going to give our best in every game.
“The serves went on our side, while in the other matches they went to the other side. Everything was working today.
“It is great because we are qualified. It was a lot of pressure, but we were working through it and pushed through it. It was really good, and now we have to get our focus on and think about our next game since we are qualified.”
Aleksandrs Samoilovs, Latvia
“We were expecting this, we were playing against Brazil and this was their last chance to get out of the pool.
“We were expecting that Evandro was going to serve very good serves, so we did quite well on reception against him. Sure he got aces, but he always does. He's the best server on tour.
“The biggest problem was that I had a lot of reception mistakes against Pedro. He has a quite easy serve so usually we should be making 100% precise reception when he serves.”