No team has played more sets at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships Hamburg 2019 presented by comdirect and ALDI Nord than André Loyola and George Wanderley and the Brazilians have at least two more coming their way as they qualified to the quarter-finals at the Rothenbaum Stadium, where they’ll face Americans Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb.
André, the reigning world champion, and George, who’s debuting in the event, have played a total of 14 sets already, meaning that four of their five matches in Hamburg went to three sets. Three of these four tie-breakers wen their way, including the latest one, a 21-16, 15-21, 15-11 Round of 16 victory over second-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl.
“I don’t know why we’re playing so many tie-breakers but as long as we keep winning them, I don’t care,” George commented. “I do know, however, that we’ve only managed to go through most of them because we stuck together in the tough moments and we’ll need it even more now that the tournament is coming to its end and only the best of the best teams are left.”
Bourne and Crabb have been in two tie-breakers themselves and they were on the right side of one of them, a Round of 32 victory over the home team of Nils Ehlers and Lars Flüggen. The Americans took the good vibes from that triumph to come back stronger and post a 21-18, 21-18 Round of 16 win over Russians Konstantin Semenov and Illya Leshukov.
“One of the main parts of our games is our energy level,” Crabb reflected. “When we’re both fired up, that’s when we play better. That was the difference-maker against Germany and we knew we needed to carry it coming into this game. We lost to the Brazilians in a bronze medal match in China a month ago and we can get some redemption here, so hopefully that helps us bringing that extra fire again.”
Another quarter-final matchup set is the one involving Russians Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Italians Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi. The Russians advanced with a 21-13, 21-18 victory over Americans Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb while the Italians downed Austrians Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller 21-18, 21-15.
