Spanish Liliana-Baquerizo qualify for the quarter-finals of A1 Grand Slam – Volleyball News
Spain’s Liliana and Baquerizo entered the Main Draw of A1 Grand Slam Women’s Beach Volleyball Tournament on Wednesday and played two matches on the opening day.
The ambitious Spaniards played under the tag of Pool A team and took on Switzerland’s Kayser and Heidrich in the first match of the tournament. The opening match turned out to be a success story for the duo. Liliana-Baquerizo tallied first win of the tournament
by beating the Swiss opponents. The match lasted for 36 minutes, while Spanish pair proved its supremacy on the Austrian sand. Swiss counterparts failed to cope with the power of swinging spikes and tricky bump passes from the Spanish side. They dropped the
decision in straight set 0-2 (15-21, 15-21).
Following a perfect start to the campaign, the pairing of Liliana and Baquerizo crossed their ways with one of the top teams of the tournament. They were challenged by top-seeded Chinese pair of Chen Xue and Zhang Xi. Spaniards tried to fight the challenge,
but could not succeed. The excellent digging and diving of Xue-Zhang Xi locked them to a low score of 14 and 12 in two sets, which was not enough to save them fromloss. The affair ended in Xue-Zhang's favour with final scores of 2-0 (21-14, 21-12).
Hence, Liliana and Baquerizo finished the first day of the A1 Grand Slam with mixed result of 1-1.
Next up, the Spanish team (Liliana-Baquerizo) came into contest with home duo of Rimser and Swoboda from Austria on Thursday. The hosts had the obvious advantage of playing in front of the home audience, but the visiting pair proved to be better and marched
away with 2-0 (21-15, 21-12) victory in 34 minutes. It was an easy game for Liliana-Baquerizo, which helped them to get back on track.
According to the set formula of the competition, Liliana-Baquerizo had to appear in another match before closing the second day of the tournament. In the next match, they contested their skills with Greece’s Tsiartsiani and Arvaniti. The 14th-seeded
Greek duo created enough trouble for 17th-seeded Spanish tandem in the match. Nevertheless, the hard work and commitment of Spaniards enabled them to down the Greek ladies on Austrian sands. The match covered its length in the two sets and concluded
with following result: 2-0 (21-18, 21-13). Spaniards had a tough time to deal with Greeks in the first set, but managed to dismiss then quit easily in the in the second set.
In the first round of the Main Draw, Liliana-Baquerizo achieved an overall win/loss record of 3-1 and clawed their way to the top-16 teams of the tournament.
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