2008 WUC Beach Volleyball update
July 4th, 2008
From the preliminary round to the main round: Exciting matches and wonderful weather
On Thursday morning the WUBC teams started into the second half of the preliminary round. The sun was shining on the courts and some players suffered from the heat. Ruth Flemig was looking forward to a shower after the tiring match against Hongkong. ‘In the first game Stefanie and I did very well but with the heat every step is hard. Even though we won in two sets (21:12; 21:16) the second set was not that sovereign anymore. The coach of the teams from Hongkong was happy about the fighting spirit that Kong/Tse showed: ‘Beachvolleyball is not that popular in Asia as it is in Europe and the USA. Our teams do their best and we are happy that we participate in the WUBC and can learn from the other teams.’ With the match today Ruth Flemig and Stefanie Hüttermann continued their winning series. Their team colleagues Frederike Fischer and Julia Großner clearly won against Hinzellerova/Hradecka from Slovakia with 21:15 and 21:19. The Austrian women surprisingly won against the Chinese team Liu/Wang on the centre court in three sets. Klopf and Pemmer had big smiles on their faces: ‘That was a big surprise to us to win against the favoured Chinese. During the group matches we continuously improved and finally we won our first match. The second Chinese women’s team Ding/Sun lost against the Spanish siblings Hopf Aguilar with 21:14 and 21:13.
The Czech women Goliasova/Weissova dominated the Brazilian team Bentes/Passos and won both sets with 21:15. The Brazilian men also did not win. Neiva Braulio/Da Silva lost against the Spanish team after a hard fight. The Brazilian defence convinced, but the offence and the communication between Garcia/Marco Arroyo helped them to win with 21:19; 21:16. Even tough the Chinese coaches expected their team to do as good as on the World Tour they could not beat the USA. Coe/Budinger did not have to play 100% to win against Gong/Zhou (16:21; 16:21). Not only the German women had a successful morning, the men also did well. Sebastian Dollinger and Florian Lüdike beat Hunyadi/Maycock from Australia with 21:16 and 21:14. Tom Götz and Markus Böckermann won even clearer against Godoy/Lombardo from Paraguay with 21:5 and 21:13.
