Anapa, Russia, July 7, 2018 – Gao Peng and Li Yang led the three Chinese duos that reached the men’s semifinals of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Anapa Open at the VolleyGrad Beach Centre on Saturday.
Jinjiang 2-star bronze medallists and second seeds P.Gao/Y.Li held their ground with a 2-1 (21-13, 17-21, 15-8) win over the Czech Republic’s Marcel Myslivecek/Martin Pihera 2-1 (21-13, 17-21, 15-8) to seize the semifinal spot.
Also making it to the semifinals are Li Zhuoxin/Zhou Chaowei and Ha Likejiang/Wu Jiaxin, who beat Russia’s Sergey Gorbenko/Alexander Likholetov 2-0 (21-16, 21-14) and Sweden’s Jakob Molin/Linus Tholse 2-0 (21-18, 21-19), respectively.
“We really wanted to progress to the semifinals,” Zhou Chawei said. “We prepared well for the match with the Russians and we showed our best side. We very much hope that China will complete a clean sweep of the medals here in Anapa.”
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Ivan Golovin/Taras Myskiv are the only non-Chinese team to have made it to the men’s semifinals, following their quarterfinal win over top seeds Maksim Hudyakov/Ruslan Bykanov 2-0 (21-14, 21-13).
“We know each other very well and this year I have played against Hudyakov and Bykanov many times, not only on sand, but on snow as well,” Myskiv said. “We are happy with today’s victory. They played very well but we were able to show our best level when it mattered most. We still need to work hard to achieve higher goals. We have a plan and we will stick to it to improve our game.”