Samsun, Turkey, July 28, 2018 – Carolina Ferraris and Francesca Michieletto who advanced from Thursday’s qualifications to the women’s main draw at the Samsun one-star stop on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour managed to qualify for among the best four of the tournament. Teams from Austria, the Czech Republic and Sweden are the other semifinalists.
13th-seeded Ferraris and Michieletto of Italy and fifth-seeded Swedes Camilla Nilsson and Sofia Ogren will meet in one of the semifinals on Sunday. The two teams already met each other for the first place in Pool D on Saturday, with the Swedes snatching a 2-1 (19-21, 21-16, 15-11) victory to advance directly to the quarterfinals, where they delivered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) shutout of Hungary’s Eszter Lutter and Szandra Szombathelyi.
Ferraris and Michieletto cruised to a 2-0 (21-15, 21-14) win over Turkey’s Ebru Karayilan and Burcu Atasoy in the first elimination round and followed up with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) upset of second-seeded Karolina Rehackova and Marie-Sara Stochlova of the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals. “I cannot believe that we are in the semifinals!” Ferraris exclaimed. “We did not expect this result, but we are happy and now we want to win our semifinal match as well.”
After winning Pool A with a 2-1 (21-11, 14-21, 15-11) victory over top-seeded Austrians Eva Freiberger and Valerie Teufl and progressing straight to the quarterfinals, the lowest ranked of the three Czech pairs, ninth-seeded Nicole Dostalova and Anna Komarkova, gained one more tie-breaker win, a 2-1 (21-16, 19-21, 15-10) over Poland’s Marta Lodej and Marta Duda, to qualify for the semifinals, where they will have to meet Freiberger and Teufl again.
Action from the match between the Austrians and the Czechs for the first place in Pool A
On the way to the semis, the Austrians managed two hard-fought three-set victories - 2-1 (21-19, 16-21, 17-15) over Slovenia’s Nina Lovsin and Tjasa Kotnik in the first elimination round and 2-1 (21-14, 17-21, 15-8) over third-seeded Czechs Sara Olivova and Tereza Pluharova.
The two semifinals on Sunday morning will start at 11:00 local time, with the Czechs and the Austrians playing on centre court. The bronze medal match is at 14:30 and the final – at 17:30, in the afternoon.