Two tandems from Canada move to Main Draw of 2012 Prague Open – Volleyball news
The 2012 SWATCH FIVB Prague Open men’s beach volleyball tournament entered the qualifying stage on Wednesday and promoted the successful tandems into the Main Draw, slated for Thursday.
Among the lucky winners of Main Draw berths were two pairs from Canada. Josh Binstock-Martin Reader and Christian Redmann-Ben Saxton performed brilliantly well and clawed their way to the next stage of the tournament.
The pairing of Binstock-Reader played a total three matches and remained undefeated. They dropped only one set during the Qualification Tournament.
In the first fixture, Binstock-Reader clashed with Cecchini-Ranghieri from Italy. Two teams had huge difference of ranking points as Italian team was seeded at No. 49, while Canadians were ranked No. 16. , Binstock-Reader managed to overcome the opposite
side but it did not come as easy as it was expected. Italian pair came strong on Binstock-Reader and claimed the first set, 21-15. However, Canadian duo controlled the action in next two sets and posted 19-21, 15-9 to finish the match with 2-1 ratio.
Binstock-Reader continued with success in the next match and held off Andrea Tomatis and Matteo Martino of Italy for 2-0 (21-14, 21-14) victory. It was a comfortable win for Canadian studs as they had the confidence of previous victory.
Popek-Makowski from Poland challenged Binstock-Reader in third match. They put up good effort but failed to prove their endeavours. Team Canada posted 2-0 (21-18, 22-20) in 39 minutes and finished the day with 3-0 record. Spectacular performance of Binstock-Reader
enabled them to reserve a seat in the Main Draw.
“Our first match was shaky but we still battled through,” said Binstock. “That carried momentum for the next two matches. We knew the Polish team would be good and we didn’t take them lightly. For the main draw, we know we have it in us to get a top-10
result.”
On the other hand, 4th-seeded Canadian pair of Saxton and Redmann also joined the Main Draw after finishing the Qualification Tournament with 2-0 record.
In the first round of the Qualification Tournament, they earned a bye and took on Kantor-Losiak of Poland in the first practical match of the day. The match continued for 47 minutes and spanned over three sets. Finally, Canadian duo bagged victory by sending
2-1 (21-19, 18-21, 15-10) on board.
Saxton-Redmann ended the day with fairly easy win over Kuleshov-Yakovlev of Kazakhstan. The set scores of the match were 2-0 (21-10, 21-17).
“Our first opponent was atop-ranked junior team and they played well,” said Redmann. “We had to grind it out and we capitalized on a couple of their mistakes at the end of the third set. We came out strong and we kept on their right side player who appeared
pretty tired.”
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