Qinzhou, China, October 1, 2018 – Austria’s Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller made a clutch finish to earn double victories on the first day of the main draw competition of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Qinzhou 3-star on Monday.
The Haiyang 3-star winners started with a 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) win over Japan’s Katsuhiro Shiratori and Takashi Tsuchiya, then thrived once more with a tactical finish against Australia’s Christopher McHugh and Zachery Schubert 2-0 (21-19, 23-21).
“It’s an Olympic qualification tournament so everyone is fighting,” Seidl said. “No match is easy and it’s really a fight to the end. I’m lucky we were able to win it in two (sets). The other team wanted to fight so hard and they didn’t see the holes, I saw it and I used it against them.”
Quick links - Beach volleyball:FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour - QinzhouFIVB.com - Beach volleyballLatest VideosFacebookTwitterInstagramEuropean pairs dominated as seven of them earned double victories on the main draw opener, while the United States’ Casey Patterson and Stafford Slick of the United States were the lone duo that managed to come up with twin straight-set wins in Pool F against Japan’s Koichi Nishimura and Yu Koshikawa and Thailand’s Nuttanon Inkiew and Sedtawat Padsawud.
Meanwhile, the second-seeded Serbian duo Stefan Basta and Lazar Kolaric came up with a victory on the first match, but conceded in the tie-break set of their second match against Russia’s Maxim Hudyakov and Ruslan Bykanov.
The third-seeded Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle cleared the first day hurdles with a straight-set and tie-break victories.