Amburgo Major 2016/ Winners Dalhausser & Lucena + Ludwig & Walkenhorst; solo 9° Alex Ranghieri & Carambula + Menegatti & OrsiToth


12/06/2016

Era l’ultimo appuntamento valido per ottenere punti ‘qualificazione’ per le Olimpiadi di Rjo de Janeiro. Però per le coppie italiane già qualificate era anche l’ultimo impegno ufficiale per capire lo ‘stato di salute’ e le conseguenti aspettative in chiave Olimpiadi.
Ecco allora che, guardando i risultati di Amburgo dobbiamo sperare in un …veloce salto di qualità quantomeno dal punto di vista della continuità.
Tutto questo peraltro emerge dal reportage completo che vi racconta tutto quanto è successo al Beach Major di Amburgo e che vi proponiamo viaggiando in sequenza news, dalle qualificazioni fino alla giornata finale, secondo il vangelo ufficiale delle Federvolley e della Fivb internazionale ( perciò in inglese).
Rimandandovi in una rubrica specifica per parlarvi di tutte le COPPIE , sia maschili che femminili, ammesse finalmente e definitivamente alle prossime Olimpiadi, dopo le coppie azzurre, soprattutto Marta & Viki, possono battere tutti ma devono farlo  ‘sempre’ fino al podio compreso.

ANTEPRIMA NEWS ( by www.federvolley.it ,  07/06/2016 ) / Beach Major Amburgo - Cicolari-Sorokaite eliminate nelle qualificazioni

Le italiane Greta Cicolari e Indre Sorokaite sono state battute per 2-0 (21-18 21-13) dalle tedesche Arnholdt-Schumacher nel primo turno delle qualificazioni del Major di Amburgo.

PRIMA MAIN NEWS ( by www.federvolley.it ,  08/06/2016 ) / Beach Major Amburgo - Inizio in salita per Menegatti-Orsi Toth e Ingrosso-Ingrosso

Si è iniziato con due battute d'arresto il Major di Amburgo. Menegatti-Orsi Toth hanno ceduto 2-1 (15-21 21-10 15-11) alle brasiliane Lili-Maria Antonelli. Tra gli uomini Paolo e Matteo Ingrosso sono stati superati 2-0 (21-18 21-17) dai canadesi Schalk-Saxton.



SECONDA MAIN NEWS ( by www.federvolley.it , 09/06/2016 ) / Beach Major Amburgo - Tre battute d'arresto per le coppie maschili
Dopo l'agrodolce giornata di ieri (una sola vittoria di Nicolai-Lupo in tre gare), anche oggi notizie non positive dal Major di Amburgo. In campo maschile tutte battute le coppie italiane: Nicolai-Lupo 2-0 (21-16 21-13) da Plavins-Regza (Lat); Ingrosso-ingrosso 2-1 (21-7 17-21 15-12) da Gibb-Patterson (Usa) e Ranghieri-Carambula 2-1 (10-21 24-22 16-14) da Alison-Bruno schmidt (Bra).


TERZA MAIN NEWS ( by www.federvolley.it , 10.06.2016)/ Beach Major di Amburgo: concluso il torneo per le coppie italiane
Si è concluso il Major di Amburgo per le coppie italiane. Alex Ranghieri e Adrian Carambula, dopo aver centrato questa mattina l’accesso agli ottavi di finale grazie al successo per 2-0 (21-17, 21-9) contro gli statunitensi Allen-Brunner sono stati sconfitti, nel pomeriggio, dagli olandesi Brouwer-Meeuwsen con il punteggio di 2-0 (23-21,21-15) chiudendo così al nono posto.
 Stesso risultato nel tabellone femminile per Marta Menegatti e Viktoria Orsi Toth eliminate oggi dalla coppia brasiliana Agatha-Barbara, vincitrice con il punteggio di 2-0 (21-10, 21-17) dopo aver vinto il match mattutino contro Ukolova-Birlova per 2-0 (21-16, 21-11). Salutano il torneo tedesco con un 25esimo posto Lupo-Nicolai e i gemelli Ingrosso.

 



QUARTA MAIN NEWS ( by www.fivb.com , June 12, 2016) / Can Sunday be as “Sandsational” as Saturday in Hamburg?
More than 15,000 Beach Volleyball fans watched Saturday's seven-match schedule for the smart Major Hamburg at the Am Rothenbaum stadium starting at 11:00 and ending at 19:00..

Hamburg, Germany, June 12, 2016 - Can the men’s Beach Volleyball teams from Brazil, The Netherlands, Russia and the United States produce the same kind of excitement here Sunday at the US$800,000 smart Major Hamburg after a “eye-opening final four” women matches Saturday where a German women’s team won its first-ever gold medal on home sand at a FIVB World Tour event?

With more than 8,000 fans watching the women’s finale, the men’s schedule Saturday featured three quarter-final matches as the pairs of top-seeded and reigning world champions Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, third-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena of the United States and fourth-seeded Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen of The Netherlands posted wins on the Am Rothenbaum stadium center court.

While the Americans, Brazilians and the Dutch were playing, 16th-seeded Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnikov of Russia had Saturday off due to a forfeit by the 16th-seeded German team of Marcus Bockermann and Lars Fluggen.  After winning two elimination matches Friday over teams from Germany and Poland, Bockermann’s right knee turned up lame forcing him to withdraw as a precautionary move.

Sunday’s mid-day men’s semi-final will feature Semenov and Krasilnikov against Brouwer and Meeuwsen, who have a history of winning “major” events, followed by an Am Rothenbaum stadium center court confrontation between Alison/Bruno and Dalhausser and Lucena.  In the late afternoon, the two winning pairs will compete for the gold medal and the $57,000 first-place prize.

Three of the four teams playing Sunday are ranked among the top four on the provisional ranking list for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with Semenov and Krasilnikov No. 11 overall with 5,150 points for their best 12 finishes since the start of the qualifying process in April 2015.

Alison/Bruno top the list with 7,740 points for their best 12 placements with Brouwer/Meeuwsen 1,430 points behind with 6,310 points.  Dalhausser/Lucena are ranked No. 4 overall with 6,040 points and trail No. 3 Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Salgado of Brazil (6,250 points) by 160 points as the smart Major Hamburg is the 30th and final men’s FIVB World Tour qualifying event for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

 

In looking ahead to the gold medal match, Brazil and the Netherlands have met previously 11 times in a FIVB World Tour

Finale with the South Americans winning six times.  Two of the meetings were at FIVB World Championships, including a Brouwer/Meeuwsen victory in 2013 in Poland and an Alison/Bruno win in 2015 at The Hague.


The last FIVB World Tour event featuring a Brazilian-Dutch finale was when Reinder Nummerdor and Christiaan Varenhorst out-lasted Alison and Bruno in a three-set thriller in Moscow two weeks ago at the Russian Grand Slam in Moscow.  Nearly 11 months early, Alison and Bruno survived a three-setter with Nummerdor and Varenhorst to win their FIVB world championship gold medal.

Brazil is 2-0 against Russians in FIVB men’s finales with Semenov and Krasilnikov playing in the last gold medal meeting between the two countries with a three-set setback at the Berlin 2013 stop to Evandro and Vitor Felipe.  The Berlin tournament was the first-ever international event for the Semenov/Krasilnikov partnership as the Russians defeated Brouwer/Meeuwsen in the quarter-finals.

There have been three American-Dutch gold medal matches since the start of FIVB-sanctioned men’s events in 1987 with the United States leading 3-0 after Dalhausser/Lucena posted a two-set win last October in Mexico over Brouwer/Meeuwsen at Puerto Vallarta.  Russia and the United States have met twice for gold medals including Dalhausser and Todd Rogers’ win over Dmitri Barsouk and Igor Kolodinsky at the 2007 FIVB World Championships in Gstaad, Switzerland.

 

WOMEN
After staging nine FIVB World Tour women’s (2000, 2003-2005, 2007-2008 and 2012-2014) events.in Berlin without winning a gold medal with only a second- (2013) and third-places (2014) to show for it, the European country finally had its first women’s title on German sand when Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst topped the at the Am Rothenbaum stadium podium Saturday after defeating highly-regards pairs from the United States and Brazil.

After defeating April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings of the United States 2-1 (21-16, 19-21, 16-14) in a 59-minute semi-final match for their first-ever win in six FIVB World Tour matches with the Americans, Ludwig and Walkenhorst posted a 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 15-12) gold medal win in 55 minutes over Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas of Brazil.

With the smart Major Hamburg being the 306th FIVB World Tour event for women, Ludwig and Walkenhorst’s win marked only that 36th-time that a host country team won a gold medal on “home” sand.  With Saturday’s finale being the 48th-time that the host country pair faced foreign opposition, the German win was the 25th for the entertaining country.

The smart Major Hamburg is the third of nine “big” events on 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour calendar.  Other SWATCH Major Series events will be held in Croatia (Porec, June 29-July 3), Switzerland (Gstaad, July 6-10) and Austria (Klagenfurt, July 27-31).  The SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals will be held September 13-18 at a site to be determined.

Two of the four FIVB World Tour Grand Slam stops have been completed in Rio de Janeiro (March 8-13 on iconic Copacabana) and Moscow (May 24-29).  Poland hosts the next international stop this coming week in Olsztyn with the final FIVB World Tour Grand Slam event being in the United States at Long Beach August 23-28.

 

QUINTA MAIN NEWS  ( by www.fivb.com, June 12, 2016 ) /Dalhausser & Lucena solve communication problem in Hamburg

Hamburg, Germany, June 12, 2016 - When Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena arrived in Germany after a disappointing 17 th-place finish in the Moscow Grand Slam, they knew something was wrong in their communication.

“We were just kind of bickering with each other,” Dalhausser explained early in the week.
Truth be told, that’s nothing new for the top United States Beach Volleyball team.

“More than usual,” Dalhausser was quick to add.
There was nothing to argue about Sunday when the duo put a stamp on the Rio 2016 Olympic qualification cycle with two resounding victories to capture the US$800,000 smart Hamburg Major.

Their 29-27, 21-12 victory over Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands at Am Rothenbaum stadium gave Lucena and Dalhausser their third FIVB World Tour victory of 2016, their sixth in the qualification cycle, and enabled them to slide into the No. 3 spot in the provisional Olympic rankings.

The win over Brouwer and Meeuwsen, the No. 2 team in the Olympic rankings, followed a decisive semifinal victory over No. 1 Bruno Oscar Schmidt and Alison Cerutti of Brazil. Not a bad day’s work.

“Today we played the best we have played as a team,” Dalhausser said. “I don’t know if Nick’s going to argue with that. We beat probably the two best teams in the world, obviously No. 1 and the Dutch guys are always in the mix, finals, semis. They’re the most physical team on the tour, both of them just hit the crap out of the ball. They’re the best serving team on tour, so you just have to deal.”

Russia’s Konstantin Semenov and Viacheslav Krasilnikov topped Bruno and Alison, 15-21, 22-20, 15-10 to capture the bronze medal.

Brouwer and Meeuwsen, who have won only once since they captured the 2013 FIVB World Championships, held an 8-6 lead in the first set before Dalhausser and Lucena got traction to lead by as many as three points.

The Dutch reclaimed the lead at 19-18, but couldn’t convert four set points. On the Americans’ fifth set point, Dalhausser served an ace to capture the first game and provide them some momentum that they never relinquished.

“That really didn’t decide it because you have to play one more, but it was a big impact (to lose the first),” Meeuwsen said. “It was a big factor.”

“After a first set like that, it’s a big impact to get back to your own game, your own level,” Brouwer added. “In the second set, we started off not focused enough, maybe, and that gave them some space and they started to serve better and our service pressure fell a little. And man, I couldn’t get any of the shots of Nick, so that was a bit of trouble.”

In the second set, the Americans remained steady while mistakes began to pile up on the Dutch side. Brouwer and Meeuwsen called a timeout down 3-1, but couldn’t stem the tide and Dalhausser and Lucena took the match’s final four points to win going away.


“Phil was staying on top of his serve and that’s how we won (the first set),” Lucena said. “He got an ace at the end by being aggressive down the middle. My job was to keep the ball in and sideout and his was to try and score some points with the serve.”

Dalhausser and Lucena will return to the States and their domestic tour to participate in the AVP New York City Open next week. They will return to the World Tour to play in the FIVB Porec Major and the FIVB Gstaad Major.

“We wanted to finish on a win to end the qualification process and that’s important,” Lucena said. “There’s going to be 24 teams that can win that (Olympic) tournament and we’re going to have to face six or seven teams. It will be tough either way, no matter what seed you are.”

To win the bronze medal, how did Semenov and Krasilnikov rebound from a semifinal loss to topple the Brazilians? Well, they were playing in Hamburg, for one thing.

“After losing the semifinal, we went to McDonald’s and ate a hamburger and we had much more power after a Big Mac,” Semenov said with a laugh. “We played better and my partner made about 15 sideouts.”

It was a rare two-loss day for Bruno and Alison, the reigning World Champions. But they were certainly not discouraged.

“It was nice to be in the final four but we need to try to improve, to try to raise our level,” Bruno said. “Our main stage is in August.”


EXTRATIME by SS/ La cover è per “the winners” Dalhausser & Lucena estrapolati dal podio.
Poi per quanto riguarda la fotogallery partiamo dal ‘manifesto’ di Amburgo, e a seguire in sequenza verso il podio i migliori protagonisti del maschile con relative didascalie.
Come  per la coppia vincente del tabellone femminile , cioè le tedesche “Kira Walkenhorst (left) and Laura Ludwig being introduced before receiving their gold medals Saturday”, precedute peraltro almeno in flash dalla coppia azzurra Marat Menegatti & Viktoria Orsi Toth.



Sergio Sottovia
www.polesinesport.it