Tokyo, Japan, July 26, 2018 – Chile’s Marco and Esteban Grimalt found good rhythm early in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Tokyo 3-star men’s main draw competition, as they posted two straight-set victories in Pool G on Thursday.
Marco and Esteban started with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-12) win against France’s Romain Di Giantommaso and Jeremy Silvestre, then a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) follow-up win over the United States’ William Kolinske and Miles Evans.
“It was a good match for us,” Esteban said. “We made a big difference in the beginning of the first set and that gave us good rhythm to win the match. We played very well with the serve so we are very happy about that.”
“We are very happy to finish top of the pool,” Marco said. “Our service was very good and side-out too. We played good block-defence, so in general, we played well.”
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In Pool A, Qatar’s Ahmed Tijan and Cherif Younousse ended their opening match against Japan’s Yu Koshikawa and Hiroki Dylan Kurokawa with ease 2-0 (21-7, 21-6), then prevailed in a tough encounter against USA’s Chase Budinger and Sean Rosenthal 2-0 (21-18, 24-22).
USA’s Casey Patterson and Stafford Slick topped Pool D with victories against Japan’s Yoshiumi Hasegawa/Keisuke Shimizu 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) and Norway’s Mathias Bertnsen/Hendrik Nikolai Mol 2-1 (17-21, 22-20, 15-10).
The European pack led by Lucerne 3-star silver medallists Lazar Kolaric and Stefan Basta won their respective pools. The Serbian duo defeated Japanese pair Junki Hatabe and Takashi Tsuchiya 2-0 (21-12, 23-21) and Haiyang 3-star bronze medallists Ha Likejiang/Wu Jiaxin of 2-1 (14-21, 21-15, 15-6) in Pool B.
Germany’s Philipp Arne Bergmann/Yannick Harms, Austria’s Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz, France’s Maxime Thiercy/Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, Turkey’s Safa Urlu/Hasan Huseyin Mermer also earned two victories to move to the next round.