Venezuelan pair upsets the US Olympic Champions at the Berlin Tournament – Volleyball News
Igor Hernandez and Jesus Villafane from Venezuela raised many eye-brows and turned many heads around with their upset win against second-seeded American duo of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser in the opening match of the smart Grand Slam Berlin on Wednesday.
The two pairs directly entered the Main Draw stage of Berlin Tournament and contested their skills in the first match. Against all odds, the 31st-seeded Venezuelan pair downed the American counterparts in three sets, 21-19, 16-21, 17-15. It was
the biggest result of their career to defeat the Olympic and SWATCH FIVB World Champions.
Hernandez- Villafane drew all the attention of audience toward them with first-set win with narrow gap of two points. The US pair hit back in the following set and brought the game to an even point. In the tie-breaker third set, Venezuelan tandem staged
a great battle for points and eventually managed to claim better status. They posted 17-15 on board and achieved big breakthrough in their careers.
Hernandez seemed totally overjoyed with their success in the match. He expressed his emotions in the following manner: “It is one of our best every results and it is definitely our best result on the Tour,” Now we must get better and better and better. It
is very exciting to have beaten the reigning Olympic champions, so we are enjoying the moment and aiming to continue to play our best.”
In the next run, they took on Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Mariusz Prudel. Poles were aware of the potential of opponents. Hence, they started out with power and did not give a chance to Hernandez- Villafane to come up. Polish duo finished the match in
straight sets, 2-0 (21-16, 21-11).
In the third match, Hernandez and Villafane were challenged by Bellaguarda and Heuscher from Switzerland. The spanned over three sets and continued for about 54 minutes. Scoring remained tight throughout the match, but Hernandez-Fañe emerged successful in
the end. They edged out the 18th-seeded Swiss pair by sending 2-1 (22-20, 19-21, 15-12) on board.
Hernandez-Fañe ended the day with 2-1 record and received huge applause. The Venezuelan also qualified for the Olympics earlier this year. Success against top US team in the smart Grand Slam Berlin, which is the second last event before Olympics, is very
good sign for Venezuelan pair.
Speaking of the upcoming matches, Hernandez said: “We have to win tomorrow to get into the next round, but we are just proud and excited to be here because we are the first Venezuelan team to reach the Olympics. Now we will give our all to win tomorrow.”
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