Haiyang, China, July 20, 2018 – After losing their first pool play match, George Souto Maior Wanderley and Thiago Santos Barbosa finally found their winning rhythm to move to the second stage of the knockout rounds of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Haiyang Open on Friday.
George/Thiago made a tight finish in their pool play match against Austria’s Jorg Wutzl/Simon Fruhbauer to win 2-1 (21-18, 18-21, 15-8) then eased through in their next match against Latvia’s Aleksandrs Solovejs/Rihards Finsters 2-0 (21-19, 21-16).
We feel so good now after our long travel to China from Brazil,” Thiago said. “We served a lot in this match and we managed to play well all throughout. We hope that we can continue with this rhythm and we hope to win the next matches because we want to get a medal here in Haiyang.”
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Austria’s Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz and Alexander Huber/Christoph Dressler won over Canada’s Grant O’Gorman/Ben Saxton 2-1 (24-22, 16-21, 22-20) and Germany’s Max Betzien/Jonathan Erdmann 2-0 (26-24, 21-18), respectively, to advance to the next stage.
French pair Romain Di Giantomasso/Jeremy Silvestre and German duo Alexander Walkenhorst/Sven Winter recorded straight set wins, while Asian tandems - Thailand’s Nuttanon Inkiew/Sedtawat Padsawut and China’s Ha Likejiang/Wu Jiaxin made it through with 2-0 and 2-1 victories, respectively.
USA’s Stafford Slick/Casey Patterson recovered from their pool play loss and won in straight sets against the host nation’s Wang Yanwei/Li Lei.