Udon Thani, Thailand, June 21, 2019 – France’s Theo Faure and Timothee Platre and Italy’s Jakob Windisch and Alberto Di Silvestre overcame difficult tasks on Friday, as they faced the home teams in the FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships.
The French and Italian pairs reached the quarterfinals after recording great victories at Thung Si Mueang.
French duo Faure and Platre upset the top-seeded Thai pair Pichakon Narathon and Phanupong Thanan in straight sets (21-19, 21-15) in front of the energetic Udon Thani crowd.
“We had a good side-out game in the first set, but after that it was a very difficult match to play,” Faure said.
“There was good ambience and that put us in good rhythm. We like to play in front of a great crowd,” Platre added. “It’s hard to keep a winning streak because you have to be mentally tough and always think about about side-out and defence.”
In the other round of 16 match, Italy’s Windisch and Di Silvestre rallied from a set down to win 2-1 (19-21, 21-14, 15-12) against Santitham Khruttha and Poravid Taovato.
After losing the first set, the Italians got back on their feet and forced the tiebreaker, which went down to the wire as the hosts made a challenging run. However, a block by Windisch and an ace by Di Silvestre secured their spot in the quarterfinals.
“It was good to win because they had the homecourt advantage,” Windisch said. “We had a tough start, but eventually we got the breaks in the decisive moments.
Brazil’s Renato and Rafael Lima de Carvalho, Slovenia’s Rok Mosic/Crtomir Bosnjak, Mexico’s Miguel Sarabia/Raymond Gerald Stephens and Germany’s Lukas Pfretzschner/Robin Sowa also kept their unbeaten runs entering the quarterfinals, following their straight-set wins in the round of 16.
Two Russian pairs earned their quarterfinal berths with two victories. Denis Shekunov and Dmitrii Shekunov won their matches in the round of 24 and round of 16 in straight sets, while Vasilii Ivanov and Sergey Gorbenko won the tiebreaker in the round of 24 before they finished the round of 16 with a straight-set victory.
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