Women’s beach volleyball favorites Brazil resolutely ended the Olympic hopes of their Latvian rivals in the women’s quarter-finals on Wednesday, continuing their unbeaten run at the defiant Games in Paris.
Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa took on the Latvian pair of Tina Graudin and Anastasija Samoilova in a game that showcased their well-deserved reputation as world-class players.
It took the pair a while to find their footing, but they made clumsy mistakes in the opening minutes which saw the Latvians easily take the first six points – before the fight began.
The top-seeded Brazilians quickly recovered and overtook lost positions to take the first set, and in the second set there was no doubt who was in charge.
The pair cruised to victory in just 32 minutes, winning the second set 21/10 to the delight of an army of Brazilian fans filling the stands of the stadium in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Fans in green and yellow T-shirts, hats and wigs waved flags, screamed and whistled for every point as if it was a gold medal.
The Brazilian winners ran around the stadium after the match, posing for photos and cheering on the enthusiastic fans, who stayed behind despite security’s best efforts to usher them out.
“I really like to get the crowd going,” Silva Ramos said afterward. “I feel like they’re embracing us and supporting us, so hopefully that will happen again tomorrow.”
They will face Tokyo 2020 silver medalists Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar of Australia in the semi-finals on Thursday at 21:00 (19:00 CET).
In the previous quarter-final, Spain’s Daniela Alvarez Mendoza and Tania Moreno Matveeva took on the dominant Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson of Canada.
Every point was hard-fought as the scoreboard crept up, with fans on their feet as the ecstatic Canadian pair grabbed victory to secure the final point.
Sporting a bold white one-shoulder bikini and reflective sunglasses, Humana-Paredes and Swiss-born Wilkerson bettered their record in Tokyo to reach the quarter-finals.
They will face Switzerland’s Tanja Hueberli and Nina Brunner in an earlier semi-final on Thursday night.
The first two women’s quarterfinals were played on Tuesday in a thriller where Hueberli and Brunner eliminated the women’s world champions, the American duo of Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng. The first men’s quarterfinal match of the day brought together the top two teams as lights. came over the Eiffel Tower.
Tokyo 2020 gold medalists Anders Berntsen Mol and Christian Sandlie Soerum of Norway – who have won every match of their Olympic campaign so far – coasted to a comfortable victory against Spain’s Pablo Herrera Allepuz and Adrian Gavira Collado when they performed somersaults across the sand after booking. your place in the next round.
“This Olympics is special,” Berntsen Mol told reporters.
But it marked the end of the road for 42-year-old Herrera Allepuz, who said it would be his last Olympics after playing alongside Gaviria Collado since 2008 – the first pair to compete in four Olympics together.
The quarter-finals were rounded off by a clash between Tokyo 2020 men’s bronze medal winners Cherif Younous and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar and Andrew Benesh and Miles Partain of the USA.
The outgoing Qatari couple clearly decided to enjoy themselves in cheeky style and earned the support of a raucous crowd as they twirled the ball on their toes, clapped and danced with the crowd between serves.
Younousse and Tijan – both naturalized Qataris born in Senegal and The Gambia – raced to triumphant victories on 21/14 and 21/16, earning a standing ovation and leading the crowd in a dance after achieving victory.
The Norwegian winners will face Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler of Germany in Thursday’s semi-finals; the Qatari duo will face world number one Swedish duo David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig in the later game.
