The 23-year-old English, who had a win and a loss in pool play on Thursday, were faced with a very difficult bracket in the elimination rounds at the Danube Island, but navigated it with extreme competency on Friday, getting wins in difficult circumstances to make it to the quarterfinals.
In their first match of the day, in the Round of 24, Joaquin put on an excellent performance at the net, getting nine blocks to help the English overcome Austrians Robin Seidl and Moritz Pristauz, who played with the support of nearly 6,000 fans at the Red Bull Beach Arena, in the tie-breaker (24-22, 22-24, 15-12). Later, in the Round of 16, they handled one of the contenders for gold, Olympic medalists and past world champions Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands, in straight sets (21-16, 21-18) to advance.
“It’s really crazy. We honestly didn’t expect this, but I think we’ve been doing a great job of building on each match. We know it’s our first EuroBeachVolley and that we’re playing more experienced teams, so have no pressure. We’re fighting with the best and we’ll always fight for every point, that’s our style. We know we need to do this to win matches and we’re looking forward to continuing it tomorrow.” - Javier Bello
On Saturday, the two will play Ukrainians Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik, who won their only match of the day on Friday, beating Swiss Quentin Métral and Yves Haussener in the tie-breaker (21-16, 19-21, 15-12).
“My brother has been playing the best volleyball I’ve ever seen from him. We have our family and friends here, that’s very special for us and has been helping us a lot. We had played in a big stadium before at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, but had never had the crowd against us as it was today. We’re ready to play at the Red Bull Beach Arena again tomorrow and I think we have a good chance if we manage to keep doing what we’ve been doing.” - Joaquin Bello
Defending champions David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig also played only one match on Friday and defeated Czechs David Schweiner and Tadeas Trousil in two sets (21-16, 21-15) to make it to the quarterfinals. They will now face Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler, who eliminated Polish Bartosz Łosiak and Maciej Rudol with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) victory in the quarterfinals.
Olympic and world champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway were strongly challenged by young French Arthur Canet and Téo Rotar, but pulled off a 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 15-12) win. They will now play Dutch Yorick de Groot and Leon Luini, who knocked out the last Austrian team in the event, formed by Julian Hörl and Alexander Horst, with a straight-set (21-19, 21-13) victory in the quarterfinals.
Two other EuroBeachVolley pool winners also won their Round of 16 matches and will meet in the quarterfinals – Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava and the Netherlands’ Steven van de Velde/Matthew Immers. The Italians topped French Arnaud Gauthier-Rat and Rémi Bassereau 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) while the Dutch had a big two-set (21-11, 21-18) win over Italians Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri.
Saturday’s schedule in Vienna for the men features the four quarterfinals, with matches planned to begin at 09:45, 13:15, 15:15 and 19:00. The semifinals and medal matches will be held on Sunday on Danube Island.
