Budapest, Hungary, August 9, 2019 – Samuele Cottafava and Jakob Windisch made a successful start at the Budapest 1-Star tournament on Friday, their fourth FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament.
The Italians defeated Latvia’s Toms Smedins and Haralds Regza 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) to put them in pole position to sew up first place in their pool when the men’s main draw resumes on Saturday.
They will take on Japan’s Kensuke Shoji and Masato Kurasaka who beat Hungary’s 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) with the winning team going straight to the quarterfinals.
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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.
In Pool A Japan’s Koichi Nishimura and Daisuke Shibata will face Slovakia’s Vid Jakopin and Tadej Bozenk for top spot.
Latvia’s Mihails Samoilovs and Aleksandrs Solovejs will take on Dirk Boehlé and Stefan Boermans of the Netherlands’ for first place in Pool B, while in Pool C Serbia’s Djordje Klasnic and Milos Milic will meet Greece’s Vasileios Mandilaris and Angelos Mandilaris.
