Aydin, Turkey, May 18, 2019 – Alex Ranghieri and Marco Caminati reached an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour semifinals for the first time on Saturday when they progressed to the Aydin 2-Star final four.
The Italians’ previous best was a quarterfinal finish at The Hague 4-Star in 2018, but they are guaranteed to better that result after they defeated Belarus’s Aliaksandr Dziadkou and Pavel Piatrushka 2-0 (21-17, 21-15).
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Ranghieri and Caminati will take on Sven Winter and Alexander Walkenhorst in the semifinals on Sunday. The German pair, who are number one seeds, beat Selçuk Sekerci and Safa Urlu 2-0 (21-18, 22-20).
In the other semifinal the Netherlands’ Jasper Bouter and Ruben Penninga will face Poland’s Maciej Rudol and Jakub Szalankiewicz.
Bouter and Penninga beat Lithuania’s Lukas Kazdailis and Arnas Rumsevicius 2-1 (20-22, 21-16, 20-18), while Rudol and Szalankiewicz enjoyed a 2-1 (21-19, 21-23, 14-16) victory over Norway’s Hendrik Nikolai Mol and Mathias Berntsen.
The tournament is taking place in Ataturk City Square in the centre of Aydin and it is the second year the city has hosted a 2-Star event. In 2018 Cuba’s Mailen Deliz and Leila Martinez won women’s gold, while Serbia’s Stefan Basta and Lazar Kolaric topped the men’s podium.