Tokyo, Japan, July 28, 2018 – Chile’s Marco and Esteban Grimalt and Serbia’s Stefan Basta and Lazar Kolaric will square off in the men’s final of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Tokyo 3-star, following their semifinal victories on Saturday.
The Grimalts outlasted the challenge of USA’s Casey Patterson and Stafford Slick to record a 2-0 (23-21, 21-15) victory.
“It was a really tough match,” Esteban said. “In the first set, we served really bad but we kept fighting and withstood the wind.”
“We will go for the gold, but we will do it point by point,” Marco said.
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Serbians Basta and Kolaric will have an opportunity to improve on their Lucerne 3-star silver medal finish after a strong 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) finish against Germany’s Philipp Arne Bergmann and Yannick Harms in the semifinals.
“I’m really excited because we are in the finals,” Basta said. “It’s a great success for us in this tournament. This is our second World Tour 3-star final this year, so we are satisfied with the victory.”
“We managed to stay more calm and more consistent especially from the service line and then in our attack. We also managed not to make any mistakes,” Kolaric said.
The bronze medal match between Patterson/Slick and Bergman/Harms will start at 13.00 local time, and the gold medal match between the Grimalts and Kolaric/Basta is scheduled at 15.30.