Budapest, Hungary, August 9, 2019 – Emi van Driel and Raïsa Schoon won two from two at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Budapest 1-Star pool play to reach the quarterfinals on Friday.
The Dutch pair began with a 2-0 (21-10, 21-9) victory over Hungary’s Fanni Vecsey and Zsófia Vasvári, and followed up by defeating Italy’s Chiara They and Claudia Scampoli 2-0 (21-16, 21-16).
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The Hungarian capital is hosting a World Tour tournament for the first time and it is taking place in a 1,000-seater arena at Lupa Beach which is located 20 minutes from the centre of Budapest. The winning teams in Budapest will collect the €1,000 first-place prizes and claim 200 Tokyo 2020 Olympic points.
Van Driel and Schoon were among four teams who won both their matches. Top seeds Chiyo Suzuki and Yurika Sakaguchi beat Switzerland’s Lea Buser and Anna Lutz 2-0 (24-22, 21-14), and then won an all-Japanese affair against Mai Morioka and Riko Tsujimura 2-0 (21-14, 21-14).
New Zealand’s Francesca Kirwan and Olivia MacDonald started by enjoying a 2-0 (21-13, 21-13) victory over Hungary’s Liza Lutter and Kitti Szombathelyi. The Kiwis then had to dig deep to hold off Lithuania’s Karole Virbickaite and Gerda Grudzinskaite with a 2-1 (14-21, 21-18, 15-13).
Russia’s Daria Mastikova and Polina Tsyganova had to dig deep to begin with a win. They defeated Hungary’s Eszter Lutter and Szandra Szombathelyi (18-21, 21-18, 15-13), but then enjoyed a more straightforward 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) against qualifiers Natasa Savovic and Milena Matic of Serbia.
