Haiyang, China, July 21, 2018 – George Souto Maior Wanderley/Thiago Santos Barbosa and Alvaro Morais Filho/Luciano Ferreira de Paula have set up a Brazilian derby in the men’s semifinals of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Haiyang Open on Saturday.
George and Thiago defeated Australia’s Christopher McHugh/Zachery Schubert with a great service and block game in their quarterfinal encounter 2-1 (21-17, 13-21, 15-9).
“We are getting better each day,” George said. “We played as a team and prevailed with great rallies and blocks. Thiago blocked very well. We started very well in the first set and got some points from it, but we slacked a bit in the second set. We had to keep our patience in the tie-break set.”
“George served very well in this match,” Thiago added. “I am happy we are in the semifinals, so we will give everything tomorrow.”
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Their compatriots Alvaro Filho and Luciano outlasted their French rivals Romain Di Giantommaso/Jeremy Silvestre in the tiebreaker with a 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 15-11) scoreline.
“I’m happy because this is my first 3-star event and we reached the semifinals. My teammate helped me a lot in this game,” Luciano said. “Brazil versus Brazil in the semifinals will be very hard, but we hope that we will win against George and Thiago.”
“We put our faith in the game and we just believed that we could win,” Alvaro Filho said. “France led in both sets and we always trailed them, but we talked to each other and kept believing, so it happened. We never gave up in this match.”
In the other quarterfinal matches, Austria’s Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller also played a three-setter against their compatriots Alexander Huber/Christoph Dressler. The two Austrian sides split victories in the first two hotly contested sets before Seidl/Waller stepped up to win the final set 2-1 (21-19, 21-23, 15-9).
China’s Ha Likejiang/Wu Jiaxin had a tight 2-0 (22-20, 23-21) finish against Thailand’s Nuttanon Inkiew/Sedtawat Padsawut to complete the cast of semifinalists in Haiyang.