Gothenburg, Sweden, April 18, 2019 – Teams from Germany, Italy, Poland and Russia mastered two victories each in Thursday’s qualifications to grab the four vacant spots in the men’s main draw of the one-star stop on the 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour in Gothenburg. It was a long day of tough battles at the indoor Beach Center, with as many as eight of the 12 qualifications matches resolved after three sets of play.
In one of the deciding games of the last qualification round, Robin Sowa and Lukas Pfretzschner disappointed the home crowd by coming back from a set down against Sweden’s Linus Frantzich and Martin Johansson to claim a 2-1 (11-21, 21-17, 15-12) win and a spot in the main draw. This was a second feat of this kind for the fifth-seeded Germans. Earlier in the day they managed a come-from-behind 2-1 (15-21, 21-16, 26-24) victory over Austria’s Florian Ertl and Johannes Kratz.
The home crowd at the Beach Center cheering the Swedish pairs on
The other team that had to persevere through two come-from-behind three-set battles were Milosz Kruk and Dominik Poznanski. The ninth-seeded Polish pair started off with s 2-1 (17-21, 21-18, 15-12) win over Norway’s Jorn Olav Gamlemoen and Christian Helland and followed up with a 2-1 (17-21, 21-14, 15-10) upset of top-seeded Koichi Nishimura and Daisuke Shibata of Japan.
15th-seeded Jakob Windisch and Samuele Cottafava were the lowest ranked qualification team to make it to the main draw. The Italians mastered a 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) upset of second-seeded Slovenians Danijel Pokersnik and Gasper Plahutnik in the first round and closed competition day late on Thursday with a 2-1 (23-25, 21-13, 15-11) win over Jannes van der Ham and Thijs Nijeboer of the Netherlands.
Third-seeded Russians Andrey Bolgov and Vladislav Ermilov were the only ones who stormed into the main draw with two speedy qualification wins – 2-0 (21-16, 21-18) over USA’s Timothy Brewster and Adam Wienckowski and 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) over Czechia’s Tomas Pala and Ondrej Sotola.
Men’s main draw action is scheduled to get underway on Friday at 12:30 local time. All games of the tournament in Gothenburg are streamed live on EuroVolley.tv.