2017 FIVB BEACH VOLLEYBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS – VIENNA
- July 28 to August 6
- Vienna Centre Court, Vienna, Austria
- Co-ed
- Championships
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Another year of World Beach Volleyball Championships down, and the streak of a men’s pair never defending an FIVB World Beach Volleyball Championships title remains alive.
The defending World Tour, World, and Olympic Champions Alison and B
Courtesy: FIVB
runo Schmidt from Brazil bowed out in the round of 16 on Friday in Vienna, losing to Canadians Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 15-13). The highly-competitive, highly-entertaining match saw all three sets decided by the minimum 2 points.
Statistically, the Brazilians were better in almost every area of the game. They had more blocks (6-2), hit at a higher percentage (53%-48%), and while they had fewer service aces (by a margin of 2-1) they also had fewer service errors (by a margin of 7-6).
The Canadian strategy was to limit the Brazilians’ runs, and in that they were successful in the match. Good evidence of that is the fact that Saxton/Schalk had more serves (55-53) than did Brazil. Saxton/Schalk also limited their hitting errors – they had just 1, as compared to 8 for the Brazilians.
“Just keep siding out,” Saxton said of his team’s strategy. “We stayed steady the whole time, we didn’t let them get any runs, more than one point at a time. That was the key, keeping our sideout game good and we’ll get one point here and there just the same as they were and it ended up going down to the wire. It’s up there, for sure. It’s the second time we’ve gotten to the quarters in Worlds beating the reigning Olympic and World Champions, that’s pretty good. We knocked them out, so I’d say that’s pretty big.”
Canada picked on Bruno Schmidt in the service game, and overall that worked pretty well – he had 6 of Brazil’s 8 hitting errors and 2 reception errors to boot. When he got going in the 2nd set, though, was when Brazil was able to pull off a win – he landed 80% of his shots in that frame.
“Like Ben was saying, they’re never going to stop, they’re going to keep coming at you,” Schalk said. “You just have to focus on the next point and we did that all game. That’s the name of the game, trying to keep your head cool and you know they’re coming at you. I like to breathe and stay as relaxed as possible. (On having match point serve coming your way): I want it. Honestly, I hope they come at me. I want the ball. I want to be able to have a chance to finish the match, that’s how I feel. It doesn’t always work out but I know that I’m confident enough that it’s going to work out most of the time. I like to be in those moments, that’s why I play this game. It’s so fun, it puts you in those positions where you’re under pressure and the best players are going to be able to respond and make those plays and I want to see that ball. (On his stomach ailment from Thursday): Feeling better today, a little bit. I wasn’t feeling too good yesterday. I was more concerned yesterday because I was real under the weather in the morning. Today I was still a little bit low on energy but it’s also so hot, I’m happy we have the rest of the day to recover.”
“They had more energy than us and it was very important in those conditions and they played smart,” Bruno Schmidt said after the match. “What can I have positive from this tournament? Good question. It’s a long tournament, I was very concentrated in small times. In this tournament we played up and down. We had a not tough match yesterday, we won 2-0, so sometimes it’s better to have a match like this and it will help you in the rest of the tournament.”
In all, this has been a successful tournament for Team Canada. Their women’s pairing of Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan knocked out defending Olympic medalists Barabara/Fernanda on Wednesday, putting two Canadian squads in the women’s quarterfnials. Pavan/Humana-Paredes have since moved on to the semi-finals of the women’s draw.
Saxton-Schalk will now face another Brazilian team – Evandro Goncalves/Andre Loyola – in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
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