Marco & Mirco drive Switzerland to hard-fought win over Austria
Recap
Switzerland advanced to the semifinals of the men’s CEV Continental Cup Final in the Hague after winning the most unpredictable quarterfinal tie with neighbours Austria in a golden match. Their next opponent Germany also resorted to a golden match to progress, while favourites Netherlands and Latvia won all their rubbers on Thursday.
In a tight first rubber between Switzerland and Austria, Marco Krattiger & Florian Breer won two extended sets against Robin Seidl & Philipp Waller, 2-0 (23-21, 23-21). Austria’s Martin Ermacora & Moritz Pristauz leveled the tie with a 2-0 (21-13, 27-25) shutout of Adrian Heidrich & Mirco Gerson, after an even more extended second set. For the deciding golden match, Switzerland opted to go with an unusual combined line-up consisting of Krattiger & Gerson and that proved to be a winning strategy. Marco and Mirco came back from a set down to claim a 2-1 (21-23, 21-16, 15-7) victory over second-seeded Ermacora & Pristauz.
Marco Krattiger“We kept our focus on our side of the court. We just believed in us. We kept the pressure on them all the time. We had two or three balls in the first set that we didn’t manage to play as we wanted to. But in the second and in the third, we pushed even harder.”
Switzerland
Mirco Gerson“The coaches made the decision that we would team up. We have practiced together only once back in Switzerland. And we won! Honestly, both our teams, we play exactly the same way. So, for us, it wasn’t a big change. Maybe it was a little bit strange for the opponents. They had no idea how we were going to play. Everybody saw that we had fun on the court.”
Switzerland
Germany and Spain also went to three rubbers, with the deciding one going to three sets. Eventually, Olympic candidates Nils Ehlers & Lars Fluggen came up with their second win within that quarterfinal tie, a 2-1 (17-21, 21-18, 15-12) over Cesar Menendez & Alejandro Huerta.
Lars Fluggen“We had some side-out problems in the first set, but afterwards we figured it out and changed our tactics a little bit. In the end, it worked pretty well. Yesterday, we had a golden match that was a really tough one. However, we went out of it even more motivated, and this is what helped us today.”
Germany
No golden matches were needed in the other two quarterfinals, but they both presented some hard-fought battles on the Scheveningen sand. Favourites Latvia won both of their rubbers against Turkey. The Netherlands pleased the home crowd with two match wins over Belgium to face Latvia in the semis.