The winners of gold, silver, and bronze medals at Men’s SWATCH FIVB Mazury Orlen Grand Slam 2010
The courts of Hotel Anders in the city of Stare Jablonki were rocked with the uproar of champions at the SWATCH FIVB Mazury Grand Slam on 8th August, 2010. The “final four” matches of the tournament cropped up incredible results and the American Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers marched as winners by securing the gold medal. The top three teams of the tournament were revealed and rewarded with the gold, silver, and bronze medals.
Gold medal – Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers (USA)
Silver medal – Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann (Germany)
Bronze medal - Marcio Araujo and Ricardo (Brazil)
Since the start of season’s last Grand Slam, the top-seeded Dalhausser and Rogers delivered outstanding performance and influenced the game with their influential knocks. They progressed from the early stages of the tournament and thumped-up with a variety of players from around the world. They were confident about their game strategy and remained un-beaten.
In between, they played some matches under huge pressure but it never let their morale down and they kept moving on and on. In the semi-final Dalhausser/Rogers outplayed the athlete pair from Brazil and the match lasted for 88 minutes, which was quite a tiring experience for them. The triumph in semi-final set a bigger task for them, and they faced 2009 FIVB world champions, the second-seeded Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann of Germany in the final match of the tournament. As a result of their hard-work and commitment, the success was destined to escort them and they got their hands on the shiny gold medal for the fourth time in 2010 Grand Slam.
The 49 minutes of breath-taking final match was witnessed by thousands of beach volleyball fans. Dalhausser and Rogers earned victory in two straight sets (21-19 and 21-19) and pushed Julius and Reckermann to the runner-up position. It was the seventh Mazury Orlen Grand Slam Tournament, and American Dalhausser and Rogers clinched the Mazury Orlen title for the first time. With this particular win, they have increased their SWATCH FIVB gold medal counts to 15. Dalhausser and Rogers have been playing together since 2006 and their partnership has produced prolific results.
They have won seven SWATCH titles in the running season and they certainly aim to tie the record of Brazilian Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos, who have captured the maximum number of men’s SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medals, which are 33. However, Dalhausser and Rogers have also entered the record book and they have the potential to move forward in the game.
It was the fifth SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal combat between American and German pairs. Dalhausser and Rogers have excellent records in the previous years, as they have attained four out of five gold medals by crushing the German side. In year 2009, Brazilian Benjamin Insfran and Pedro Salgado eliminated Brink and Reckermann from the final of Mazury Orlen Grand Slam and this time around, they were beaten by American Dalhausser and Rogers.
The winning duo shared the $43,500 for the first-place prize while the runner-up German pair split $29,500 for second-place in the tournament.
The Brazilian Marcio Araujo and Ricardo clashed the German Klemperer and Koreng for the third-place in the tournament. Both of these teams lost their semi-final matches against winner and runner-up teams of the tournament. In the bronze medal match, Marcio and Ricardo accomplished an easy win over the German pair and merited for prize money of $23,000.
With the end of the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam, the European portion of the SWTACH FIVB World Tour has also finished. The beach volleyball sensation has now moved to the city of Norway and, then it will travel to the countries such as Finland, Switzerland, China and season will be ended in November 2010 in Thailand.
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