Hail to the champs (photo credit: Flickr)
I hate having to do this as a quick set, but I experienced some pretty mysterious internet connection problems while writing up my day five report. It just….was gone. I'm still not sure what happened, and I guess I can't guarantee that it won't happen again, but back I come.
I missed just about all of the women's playoffs (and most of the men's so far, too), and that guts me, but I did happen to catch most of the women's world championship match. China's Xue and Zhang, who not only lost in the group stage but lost pretty badly, won a three-set thriller over Germany's Borger/Büthe. The final was (18-21, 21-17, 21-19). The Germans had the first world championship point, on 15-14, but the Chinese took two straight there, and eventually finished the match on their fifth match point.
It's gotta be a little disappointing for the Germans, because this was their only loss all week. They were unbeaten in pool play. For the Chinese tandem, it's big congratulations with the hopes that we'll see them in more events this year. There is one more tour stop back in China (the Beijing Grand Slam, first week of October), as well as some open events in Asia, but most of the remaining calendar is in western Europe or the Americas. Don't really know if they'll make the trip. They didn't to Corrientes, The Hague, or Rome.
The bronze medallists were the Brazilians Lili and Seixas, salvagaing what can only be described as a disaster of a world championships tournament for that nation, as they lost three of their four women's teams in the round of 32.
We've got the semifinals and finals on the men's side tomorrow. Brazil are guaranteed at least one more medal, as the defending champions Alison/Emanuel somewhat surprisingly (by me, anyway) are still alive and will face their compatriots Ricardo and Alvaro. One team goes to the gold final, the other to the bronze final. The other semifinal features Germany's Erdmann and Matysik against Brouwer and Meeuwsen of the Netherlands. One of the few knockout matches i was able to see was Brouwer and Meeuwsen against Nummerdor and Schuil. Wasn't an especially interesting match (I didn't even try to write anything about it), but it definitely seemed like a 'passing of the torch' moment, from one pre-eminent Dutch beach volleyball duo to the next.
Barring another unforeseen calamity I will have a regular write-up for the men's championship matches tomorrow.
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