Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena are used to play for medals and not just to remain alive in tournaments, but when the American veterans saw their permanency at the 2019 Beach Volleyball World Championships in risk, they stepped their games and secure a spot in the Round of 32.
Phil and Nick struggled in pool play in Hamburg and were nearly eliminated early in the tournament, but they managed to advance to the lucky loser round, where they showed glimpses of the team they normally are to beat Mexicans Juan Virgen and Lombardo Ontiveros 21-15, 21-17.
“We’ve fortunate to still be alive in the tournament,” Lucena said afterwards. “I thought we didn’t deserve to get out of pool but the results helped us. We knew we weren’t playing well and we’re lucky that it didn’t happen in an elimination match.”
“Our passing, serving and defense were way better and we know that we can play well and that when we do it we’re pretty tough to beat. We’ll need to play tough teams the rest of the way, so we’ll have to play better and hopefully we do.”
The Americans will now play Qataris Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan.
Teams from Germany, the Czech Republic and Australia also advanced. Germans Philipp Bergmann and Yannick Harms qualified with a 21-19, 21-16 victory over Italians Alex Ranghieri and Marco Caminati. Their next opponents will be will be Norway's Anders Mol and Christian Sørum.
Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner denied the host country the chance of having yet another team in the Round of 32 after they posted a 26-24, 21-14 win over Jonathan Erdmann and Sven Winter. Their next match will be against Russia's Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov.
Australians Cole Durant and Damien Schumann, on the other hand, needed all three sets (21-23, 21-19, 15-11) to prevail over Uruguayans Marco Cairus and Mauricio Vieyto. They will now face Poland's Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl.
