The Hague, the Netherlands, June 16, 2013 – Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Mariusz Prudel defeated Austrian qualifiers Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl on Sunday in two sets (21-18 21-16) to win the bronze medal at the Transavia The Hague Grand Slam. It is their first medal since Berlin last July, where they claimed bronze as well.
It is a promising return to form with the World Champions on home sand in just over two weeks. “This is a good motivation towards the world championships”, Fijalek said after the match. But there is still a lot of room for improvement. “We are happy with this medal”, Fijalek said. “But we are not so happy with our game. We played terrible against Brazil yesterday. And today we did not play our best either. We made so many mistakes.”
Austrians up and coming
Austria’s Huber and Seidl are up and coming this season, since they made some alterations in training and coaching. For the second time this year they reached the semi-finals all the way from qualification. In Fuzhou they even won bronze, but in The Hague they were no match for the seasoned Polish team, who finished fifth at the Olympics last year.
Seidl was able to block Fijalek a few times but was no match for Prudel. The Polish, despite their own unhappiness with the way they were playing, were pretty much in control of the whole match. They started the year with three fifth places. Fijalek: “We are slowly getting there. We were in the quarterfinals in the last three events and we won the Super Cup in Germany last week.”
Looking forward to World Championships
They are looking forward to the World Championships in Stare Jablonki. Fijalek does not feel any pressure yet. “We will play a good game and focus on tactic. We have always had good results in Stare Jablonki, a silver medal and two quarterfinals. Volleyball is very important in Poland, so we will have a lot of support from the home crowd.”
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