Russia finishes 4-0 on the opening day of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Cup – Volleyball News
The Pool-Play of the 2012 FIVB Women’s Beach Volleyball World Cup brought Russian duos in competition with tandems from Venezuela on Thursday.
Russian capital city Moscow created the backdrop for thrilling Pool-Play matches, while the action took place at Vodny Centre Court. Russia entered the competition with two duos: Maria Bratkova/Svetlana Popova and Anastasia Vasina/Anna Vozakova. The opening
day featured a total of four matches that involved Russian teams. The homes tandems did amazingly well and finished the day with 4-0 record. One of the four matches ended in a forfeit.
Bratkova-Popova kicked off the action by taking on visiting pair Mosquera-Rodriguez from Venezuela in the first match. The home duo exhibited a consistent performance and cruised past to 2-0 (21-13, 21-12) victory. It took them only half-an-hour to dismiss
the opposite team.
The pairing of Vasina and Vozakova also followed the footsteps of Bratkova-Popova and added another win to Russia’s tally. They overpowered second duo from Venezuela that consisted of Norisbeth Agudo and Orguidea Vera. Russians displayed eye-catching action
on the net and stormed opponents’ half with ground-break shots. Venezuelan players totally collapsed and dropped opening set after scoring only seven points (7-21). Guest pair improved in the following set, but could not manage to avoid defeat. Vasina-Vozakova
posted 21-16 on board and wont the match, 2-0.
Following a clean sweep in Round-1, the winning Russian duos repeated the same performance in the next round, which took place on the same day.
In the second round, Russia ousted Mozambique. First match of Round-2 was supposed to be played between Vasina-Vozakova and Chongo-COSSA. However, the Mozambique pair did not appear on the centre court and the Russians earned winning status. In the last
fixture of the day, Bratkova-Popova defeated A. CUMBI-R. CUMBI of Mozambique in straight sets. They posted 2-0 (21-7, 21-4) victory over rivals and led Russia to 4-0 record.
Russian star Vasina shared her views after her team’s victory. She stated: “We are hoping to get the second Olympic spot for Russia here at Vodny Stadium in Moscow, and we are so grateful to the FIVB and Russian Volleyball Federation for staging this event
in Russia.”
She further added: “After the last week's victory in the CEV Continental Cup here in Moscow as well we got one Olympic ticket. Now it's our chance to join them, so we need to keep playing good beach-volleyball here. The first match wasn't so tough, but there
are some very serious teams in our Pool like Netherlands and Mexico, so tomorrow it will not be easy.”
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