Five golden matches in men’s eighthfinals
Recap
As many as five of Wednesday’s eighthfinal ties at the men’s CEV Continental Cup Final in the Hague were decided in golden matches. Only Austria, Switzerland and hosts Netherlands advanced to Thursday’s quarterfinals without losing a rubber.
A nail-biting tie between Germany and Lithuania was eventually resolved in the overtime of a tie-breaker set in a golden match. Considered one of the main contenders for a spot at the Olympics, Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Lars Fluggen started off with a serious blow from Lithuania’s Audrius Knasas & Patrikas Stankevicius, who claimed a 2-1 (13-21, 21-19, 15-10) victory. After Alexander Walkenhorst & Sven Winter leveled the tie with a 2-0 (21-12, 21-10) shutout of Artur Vasiljev & Robert Juchnevic, Ehlers & Fluggen went back to the court for the golden (re-)match with Knasas & Stankevicius. The two pairs went to three sets again. Only this time, the Germans came out on top for a dramatic 2-1 (21-16, 15-21, 17-15) win.
Youssef Krou & Olivier Barthelemy opened France’s tie with Turkey with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) shutout of Murat Giginoglu & Volkan Gogtepe. Safa Urlu & Selcuk Sekerci restored the balance with a hard-fought 2-1 (19-21, 21-18, 15-9) win over Quincy Aye & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat. Turkey chose to put forward a combination between Giginoglu and Urlu in the golden match and it turned out to be a winning strategy, 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) over Krou & Barthelemy.
Murat Giginoglu“The golden match against France was a tight one. They have good players and it was a close call in the second set, so we are very happy about the victory. Everybody in our team wants to win, we feel united, and we are looking forward to seeing what’s next.”
Turkey
In the other three golden matches, Latvian standouts Aleksandrs Samoilovs & Janis Smedins delivered a tight 2-0 (28-26, 21-15) shutout of Belarus’s Aliaksandr Dziadkou & Pavel Piatrushka, Spain’s Cesar Menendez Ortego & Alejandro Huerta Pastor mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-13) clean slate against Czechia’s Jan Dumek & Vaclav Bercik, while Belgium’s Dries Koekelkoren & Tom van Walle produced a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) victory over Ukraine’s Vladyslav Iemelianchyk & Sergiy Popov.
Favourites Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands did not allow their eighthfinal encounters with Slovenia, Serbia and Estonia, respectively, to go to three rubbers and won all their matches to advance in the tournament.