Moscow, Russia, August 8, 2018 – Alexandra Moiseeva and Ekaterina Syrtseva earned local bragging rights when they knocked fellow Russians Ekaterina Birlova and Evgenia Ukolova out of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Moscow 4-Star tournament on Wednesday.
The all-Russian clash took place in the second qualifying round and meant that the winners would qualify for the main draw which begins at Gorky Park in downtown Moscow on Thursday.
Moiseeva and Syrtseva needed a tie-break to progress and eventually won 2-1 (21-18, 19-21, 15-12).
“It is always an interesting match when we play against our teammates as we know each other well from training together,” Syrtseva said.
“We are very pleased to have won this match on our home sand. We will now fight in the next round to achieve the best result we possibly can.”
In total eight teams per gender made it through qualifying to take the total number of teams in the main draw to 32.
In the men’s draw Alvaro Filho and Thiago Barbosa didn’t hang around when they took on Denis Shekunov and Dmitrii Veretiuk.
The Brazilians only decided to play together at the last minute because their usual partners – George Wanderley and Saymon Barbosa – are injured.
However, they made it look as though they had been playing together for years as they won 2-0 (21-19, 21-17).
“We were a bit nervous in the match because we are only together for this tournament,” Thiago said. “We had some nerves at the start, but then we continued to push each other and everything came together.
“We began to serve well, and pass and set well because even though the Russians are young, they are a very strong team.”
The Moscow 4-Star is the last 4-Star tournament in the 2017-18 season, and runs from August 8-12. The final tournament to take place is the Hamburg 2018 FIVB World Tour Finals that run from August 15-19.
