Anapa, Russia, July 5, 2018 – Greek brothers Vasileios and Angelos Mandilaris endured two tough three-set matches to advance to the men’s main draw of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Anapa Open on Thursday at the VolleyGrad Beach Sports Centre.
The Mandilaris brothers edged newly crowned U20 European champions Dmitrii Veretiuk/Denis Shekunov of Russia in three sets. The Greek siblings came from behind and a three-point deficit to win 22-20 in the first set, then their rivals levelled the match with a 21-17 win in the second frame. However, the Greeks proved stronger in the tie-break and closed the match at 15-12.
In the first round, they rallied from a set down to win against Kazakhstan’s Pavel Aleinik/Artem Petrossyants 2-1 (19-21, 21-16, 15-12).
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The men’s qualification round started with Italy’s Francesco Vanni/Daniele Di Stefano claiming a 2-0 (21-14, 21-13) victory over Kazakhstan’s Yegor Dimitriyev/Yerlan Yelubayev, but failed to maintain their winning momentum against China’s Li Zhuoxin/Zhou Chaowei, who claimed the last spot available in the main draw with a 2-0 (22-20, 21-19) triumph.
Austria’s Florian Ertl and Mathias Seiser routed Russia’s Artur Salmanov/Anton Saraev 2-0 (23-21, 21-14), while Pavel Shustrov/Danila Ivanov avenged their compatriots’ loss with a 2-1 (21-16, 15-21, 16-14) win over Hungary’s Balazs Benko/Botond Olah.