Gstaad, Switzerland, July 13, 2013 – Ricardo Santos and Alvaro Filho reversed the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships Mazury 2013 final result, when they beat Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen to reach the Gstaad Grand Slam final on Saturday.
The Brazilians beat the Dutch pair 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) and will now play compatriots Pedro Salgado and Bruno Oscar Schmidt in the gold medal match.
After Ricardo and Alvaro won the first set, the Dutch were threatening to fight back in the second. However, a well-placed time-out allowed Ricardo and Alvaro to relax and find their rhythm. Ricardo made four blocks in a row to bring up match point, but after Brouwer and Meeuwsen saved the first, they hit out to give the Brazilians the win.
“In that tournament they played really well, they were brilliant,” Alvaro said. “Now we have started again and I think we did a great job.
“It was a good result. They played well, but we stood up to them and did our job.”
The 38-year-old Ricardo and 22-year-old Alvaro only joined up at the start of the year, but they already have silver and bronze medals to their names.
Ricardo’s experience shone through in both sets as he continually talked to his teammate, exalting him to his best efforts and he was duly rewarded as Alvaro raised his game.
“All the time he was saying just remember what we watched on the video and what we have to do during the match,” Alvaro said. “That was why we were so successful in the match.”
Pedro and Bruno set up all Brazilian final
Pedro and Bruno eased into their third gold medal match of the year with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) win over USA’s Jacob Gibb and Casey Patterson.
The pair won gold at The Hague Grand Slam and silver at the Shanghai Grand Slam, but failed to reach the last four of the World Championships. However, by reaching the final in Gstaad they feel that they can now look ahead to rest of the World Tour season with confidence.
“It was a very good performance by us today,” Pedro said. “We haven’t lost a set in the tournament so far, which means we haven’t lost our focus on the world tour, even after not reaching the semis of the World Champs.
“This is still a big tournament for us, so we have had to keep our heads up and try and do our best every time. We can still be the winner of the Tour; there are still a lot of tournaments left.”
Ricardo and Alvaro are no strangers and Pedro is another who is in awe of the way that Ricardo is playing 18 years after he made his senior FIVB debut.
Both sides are in good form and Pedro’s performance against Gibb at the net was vital to their win as he forced his rival into a number of unforced errors.
“We are one-one this year; they won in Fuzhou, we won in Shanghai,” Pedro said. “It is going to be an incredible match. Ricardo is incredible; he had such a good match. It’s going to be good.”