Spaniards cruise past to Main Draw of 2012 Prague Open – Volleyball news
With a stellar performance at the Qualification Tournament of 2012 Prague Open Men’s Beach Volleyball Tournament, Spanish duo of Francisco Alfredo Marco-Christian Garcia advanced to the 32-team Main Draw.
Spain played in the qualifying stage of the tournament with two teams but only one of them could survive the tough challenge. 7th-seeded Mesa-Lario also played under the flag of Spain but got eliminated in the second round. Nevertheless, Marcos-García staged
a consistent performance and paved their way to the Main Draw without losing a single set.
Previously, Marcos and Garcia were teamed-up with different players and had reached the main draw individually. However, they formed the new partnership in 2011 and together as a team they continued with success.
The Swiss pair opened the day by taking on Petter and Viktor Jonsson from Sweden. The Swedes were no match for Marcos-García and did not create much of a trouble. Marcos devastated the opponents with mighty hits, while Garcia also remained active on the
net.
With better combination of defence and attack strategy, they breezed past the Swedish pair in just two sets. The referee blew the whistle to announce the winners in 35th minute of the game, while Marcos-Garcia captured the spotlight as triumphant duo. They
claimed the first match by polling 2-0 (21-10 21-16) on board.
In the second round of the Qualification Tournament, Sweden’s Hannes Brinkborg and Stefan Gunnarsson crossed ways with Marco-Garcia. Comparatively, the second Swede duo had better skills than the first team which got dismissed in the first match. They offered
strong opposition to Swiss pair and hit from different angles.
However, solid blocking of Garcia proved helpful for Swiss team to control the operations of the game. Swedish pair suffered the damage in first set with four-point deficit (17-21) but came back from behind in the next set.
They gave a good competition to Spaniards in the second set and also had a couple of set points. In the end, they had to put up with defeat with narrow gap of two points (21-23) whereas Spanish team added second win to its count.
In the third round, 30th-seeded Marcos-García, just as easily edged out American pairing of Casey Jennings and William Strickland. They posted 2-0 (21-16 21-17) win over US pair and extended their winning streak to 3-0.
The winning Spanish team, coached by 2004 silver Olympic medallist Xavier Bosma, received huge applause from fan for their brilliant act. Garcia, who seemed pretty contended after day-1 results, commented, “Today it was all about concentration and control.
We are not tall players, but we scored quite a lot of blocking points today thanks to that focus.”
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