August 24, 2014 – Pedro Salgado and Alvaro Filho set up a gold medal match against Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins after they won the first of the Stare Jablonki Grand Slam semifinals on Sunday.
Pedro and Alvaro are playing in their first FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together after pairing up following the Klagenfurt Grand Slam and they faced a tough test against the USA’s Jacob Gibb and Casey Patterson, but stayed focused to win 2-1 (21-17, 11-21, 15-13) in three sets.
The Brazilians won the first set, but the Americans fought back in the second and then saved one match point before a powerful Pedro spike won the match.
Latvian duo Samoilovs and Smedins beat Austria pair Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst 2-0 (22-20, 21-17).
It sets up a clash between the 2013 World Tour champions and one half of the team they pipped to the title; Pedro finished narrowly behind them alongside Bruno Schmidt.
The double-gender US$800,000 FIVB Stare Jablonki Grand Slam runs from Tuesday August 19 until Sunday August 24 when the men’s medal matches take place. It is the 13th event and the ninth Grand Slam on the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar that features 10 Grand Slams and nine Open tournaments.
The 2014 World Tour began at the Fuzhou Open in China in April and concludes at the Durban Open in South Africa in December. Next up on the World Tour calendar is the Sao Paolo Grand Slam which runs from September 23-28.