Brazilians Alison/Andre Play Into Moscow Quarterfinals

FIVB Moscow Four Star

• Moscow, Russia
• Aug. 7-12, 2018
• Schedule/Results

After the final eight teams won their way into the first knockout round, the fields was cut 24 to 10.

The 16 teams who battled in the first knockout round placed second and third in their respective pools.

The winners from those matchups were:

• No. 20 Esteban Grimalt/Marco Grimalt (Chile)
• No. 10 Konstantin Semenov/Ilya Leshukov (Russia)
• No. 8 Taylor Crabb/Jake Gibb (USA)
• No. 17 Adrian Heidrich/Mirco Gerson (Switzerland)
• No. 13 Alison Cerutti/Andre Loyola Stein (Brazil)
• No. 24 Murat Giginoglu/Volkan Gogtepe (Turkey)
• No. 15 Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin (Russia)
• No. 21 Enrico Rossi/Marco Caminati (Italy)

Only two of the eight Round 1 matches went to tiebreak, with Semenov/Leshukov rallying past Belgians Dries Koekelkoren/Tom Van Walle (17-21, 21-18, 15-9) and Krasilnikov/Liamin edging Americans Bill Kolinske/Miles Evans (14-21, 21-15, 15-11).

In the second knockout round, all but one of the eight matches were played, with the final slated for 2 a.m. ET Saturday between Brazil’s No. 5 and Russia’s Krasilnikov/Liamin.

Of the seven matches that were completed, two went the distance. Alison/Andre continued their run with a 17-21, 21-18, 15-10 win over Dutch duo Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen. Qatar’s No. 9 Cherif Younousse/Ahmed Tijan ousted homestanding Semenov/Leshukov 21-18, 17-21, 19-17.

Rounding out the list of quarterfinalists are:

• No. 1 Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Igor Velichko (Russia)
• No. 6 Janis Smedins/Aleksandrs Samoilovs (Latvia)
• No. 4 Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo (Italy)
• No. 7 Michal Bryl/Grzegorz Fijalek (Poland)
• No. 2 Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira (Spain)

Six of the seven teams that moved on to the quarterfinals won their respective pools. The lone exception so far is Alison/Andre, who ousted third seeded Brouwer/Meeuwsen.

Quarterfinal matchups are:

• Velichko/Stoyanovskiy vs. Cherif/Ahmed Tijan
• Smedins/Samoilovs vs. Nicolai/Lupo
• Alison/Andre vs. Bryl/Fijalek
• Herrera/Gavira vs. the final Round 2 winner