Talita\Maria Duo Wins SWATCH FIVB Milner Open
The SWATCH FIVB World Tour Campaign 2010 has stepped into its final phase. Netherlands hosted the campaign’s last double-gender event while the tournament that started off on Tuesday reached its final-four matches on Sunday.
The SWATCH FIVB Milner Open kicked off with the Country Quota matches on its opening day and headed into the qualification tournament the next day. Afterwards, the qualifying teams entered the Main Draw stage in which 32 matches were staged with a double-elimination arc. Incredible performances amused the beach volleyball fans and the game entered its fourth day. The successful teams played the 16-match Main Draw and jumped into quarter-finals. Due to the elimination bracket, only four teams progressed from quarter-finals to the semi-finals.
In women’s section, the Olympics champions and second seed Talita Antunes and Maria Antonelli paved their way into the final-four stages. Later, they managed to capture the gold medal. It was their season’s second title while sixth since they formed partnership in 2009. They defeated third-seed Chen Xue and Xi Zhang of China in the final match. Talita\Maria dismantled the Chinese strength in two straight sets. It was a 38 minutes run where both Brazilians posted 21-19 and 21-18. Their game was full of amazing spikes and remarkable digs. The winning pair shared US$30,000 for the first prize.
Talita\Maria actually avenged Xue\Zhang who had defeated them in an earlier match of the tournament. Talita\Maria had earlier, slashed top-ranked Juliana/Larissa in the semi-final with a 2-1 (24-22, 18-21, and 15-6) victory. On the other hand, Xue\Zhang had finished the last SWATCH FIVB event with a title win. They had also won the grand slam title in Moscow this year. It was their third attempt to capture the gold medal but Brazilian duo made them finish in the second place. Xue and Zhang shared US$21,000 for the second prize.
For the third prize bronze, 13thseed Angie Akers and Tyra Turner of US clashed with 9th seed Dutch pair of Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel. However, victory was claimed by the US pair. Angie\Tyra pocketed US$15,000 while Keizer\Marleen had to split US$11,200 for fourth place finish.
One of the crowned champion, Talita Antunes also celebrated her 28th birthday on Sunday. She expressed her delight by saying, “This is a very special day as I celebrate my birthday with a gold medal win. We are both very pleased with our victory as the weather conditions this week had been very difficult.”
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