Brazilian and German duos claim Country Quota Playoffs success – Volleyball news
The first SWATCH FIVB Grand Slam beach volleyball tournament started off on Monday, April 30 in Shanghai, China.
The day-1 of the Shanghai Grand Slam women’s beach volleyball tournament featured the Country Quota Playoffs and teams from Brazil and Germany came into competition.
In the Brazilian CQs, pairing of Maria Clara and Raquel clinched success and advanced to the qualifying stage of the tournament. On the other hand, German duo Gernert and Günther delivered a winning performance at the CQs and earned a spot in the second
stage of the tournament.
The opening affair of the Country Playoffs brought the Brazilian pairs together on the centre court. One side of the court was captured by Maria Clara and Raquel, while Vieira-Lili took their positions on the opposite side. The match started out with an
exchange of powerful serves as both duos had good energy in the start.
Furthermore, Maria Clara and Raquel paced things off with heavy strike of volleys and pushed Vieira-Lili behind. The opposite pair tried hard to catch up with the Maria Clara-Raquel but all their efforts went futile. The former duo continued with success
and secured the opening set with 4-point lead, 21-17.
Vieira and Lili followed a different strategy in the next set but still failed to bring any change in the game. With one set in hand, Maria Clara and Raquel produced confident shots and did not allow the opponents to come out of the blues. Eventually, the
second set also ended with identical score of 21-17 and Maria Clara-Raquel marched away with victory. The Playoff victory enabled the winning Brazilian pair to reserve a berth in the Qualification Tournament.
In the second match of the day, German teams came into stride. The duo of Gernert-Günther posted 2-1 (21-16, 14-21, 15-8) victory over Bieneck-Großner and advanced to women’s qualifiers at 2012 Shanghai Grand Slam.
Gernert-Günther proved their supremacy in the opening set of the match. They faced a lot of resistance from the opponents but managed to attain a better position. Bieneck-Großner scored 17 points in first set, whereas Gernert-Günther achieved the set points,
21-17.
Gernert-Günther managed to win the opening set but could not stop the opponents in the following set. Bieneck and Großner developed a great chemistry between them and offered strong offence to the compatriots. Gernert and Günther collapsed in the second
set and ended up after adding only 14 points. Bieneck-Großner created the tie of scores by winning set and took the game into third frame. Third decisive set took many different turns as both teams rallied hard to claim the match points. However, Gernert-Günther
hit the mark with 15-8 win and edged out the opponents.
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