Itapema, Brazil, May 19, 2018 – There are eight teams left in in contention in each gender as the $300,000 Itapema Open reaches its second-to-last day at the Meia Praia Beach this Saturday. After the conclusion of the day’s schedule, the finalists of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour four-star event in Brazil will be finally known.
The 12 matches scheduled for the day are split in two blocks, with the men’s and women’s quarterfinals happening in the morning. The semifinals in both genders are set to take place in the evening and they can be watched on FIVB’s Youtube channel.
The women’s quarterfinals will feature five of the ten top-seeded teams of the tournament. With the top three seeded out of contention, Czech Republic’s Marketa Slukova and Barbora Hermannova is the highest-ranked tandem left, at fourth, and they will face Canada’s Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson.
The other Czech team, the one of Kristyna Kolocova and Michala Kvapilova, is still undefeated in Itapema and they will play against Brazil’s Maria Elisa Antonelli/Carol Solberg, who eliminated USA’s Kerri Walsh Jennings/Nicole Branagh.
The other two matchups are Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Duda Lisboa vs. Germany’s Victoria Bienek/Isabel Schneider and Switzerland’s Joana Heidrich/Anouk Vergé-Dépré vs. Germany’s Karla Borger/Margareta Kozuch.
“It’s always tough in the World Tour,” Agatha said. “Every match is hard and we can’t slow down. We’ll keep preparing well for the matches and focusing on our goals.”
In the men’s tournament, top-seeded Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola of Brazil will try to continue their undefeated march to the medal matches against Canadians Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter.
The other Brazilian team still alive in the tournament, Vitor Felipe/Guto Carvalhaes, escaped from elimination on Friday night and they will have to do it again against the 2013 world champions Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands.
The other two games will have Poland’s Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak vs. the Netherlands Christiaan Varenhorst/Jasper Bouter and Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sorum vs. Switzerland’s Nico Beeler/Marco Krattiger.