Poland has arguably two of the best men’s beach volleyball teams in the world right now, but only one of them would be able to advance to the quarter-finals of the Swatch Major Gstaad. And it will be the one of Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak.
The Under-19, Under-21 and Under-23 world champions prevailed in the three-set (21-14, 15-21, 15-10) battle against compatriots Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl to remain in contention for medal at the Swiss Alpine village. It was their third victory in four meetings with their national rivals.
The Polish will now cross paths with Italian Olympic silver medalists Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai, who cruised past Brazilians Alison Cerutti and Álvaro Filho with a 21-16, 21-14 win. Two of the longest-lasting teams competing in the World Tour, the Polish and the Italians have met five times internationally and Lupo and Nicolai have won three.
Reigning Gstaad Major champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway also had a tough path to the quarter-finals as they came from behind to top USA’s Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb 15-21, 21-11, 15-8.
Brazil’s Guto Carvalhaes and Saymon Barbosa, who knocked word champions Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov out of the tournament on Thursday, moved forward through the same route as they eliminated the last Swiss team standing, the one of Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson, with a 19-21, 21-15, 15-13. They will now face the Vikings on Center Court at 4pm CEST.
Evandro Gonçalves and Bruno Schmidt are other Brazilian team guaranteed in the quarter-finals after they beat Russians Nikita Liamin and Taras Myskiv. The Brazilians had won the first set 21-19 and had a 19-12 lead in the second when Liamin sustained a nasty knee injury and had to forfeit the match. Their next opponents will be Qatar’s Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan, who eliminated Latvians Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs 26-24, 21-19.
The other match-up will reunite Dutch Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who downed USA’s Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena 21-16, 21-14, and Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, who needed all three sets (24-26, 21-16, 18-16) to get past Canadians Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter.
