Ágatha Bednarzuk and Duda Lisboa will have to settle for a ninth-place finish for the second-straight week as the Brazilians couldn’t get past the Round of 16 of the Swatch Major Gstaad. Last week, the 2018 World Tour Finals winners stopped at the same stage of the World Championships in Hamburg.
Ranked fifth in world, the Brazilians were upset in the Swiss Alps by Slovakians Natalia Dubovcova and Andrea Strbova, who are currently the 25th best team on the planet according to the world rankings. The Europeans came from a set behind and, helped by a great performance of Dubovcova, who scored 26 points, downed the Brazilians 16-21, 21-19, 15-11.
The victory sent the Slovakians to the quarter-finals and guaranteed their best-ever finish in a Beach Major Series events. They now wait for the match between Brazilians Bárbara Seixas and Fernanda Berti and Swiss Nina Betschart and Tanja Hüberli to know who their next opponents will be.
Another Brazilian team to exit the tournament in the Round of 16 was the one of Talita Antunes and Taiana Lima, who fell to Americans Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat 21-16, 21-19. The veterans are now headed to an all-American quarter-final match-up against Alix Klineman and April Ross, who prevailed over Czech Republic’s Marketa Sluková and Barbora Hermannová 26-24, 21-9.
The South American nation, however sent two teams into the quarter-finals, most notably the one of Rebecca Cavalcanti and Ana Patrícia Ramos, who posted a solid 21-16, 21-15 win over Canada’s Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson. They will now be faced with another Canadian team, the one of reigning world and Gstaad Major champions Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes, who eliminated Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka with a 21-16, 21-17 win.
"Playing in Switzerland is always great and I think we were really relaxed today," Rebecca said. "That was really important because we made very few mistakes and that's how you have to play against a team as good as the Canadians. We communicated well and remained alert all the time."
Carol Salgado and Maria Antonelli needed all three sets (21-19, 14-21, 15-10) to prevail over Spanish Liliana Fernández and Elsa Baquerizo in the Round of 16. The Brazilians will clash with reigning European champions Sanne Keizer and Madelein Meppelink in the quarter-finals as the Dutch topped Russia’s Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina 21-16, 21-18.
