Olympics beach volleyball results: August 6
Recapping the action from a busy day of beach volleyball at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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The Rio 2016 beach volleyball tournament got off to a roaring start on Day 1 of the Games, with six matches each in men’s and women’s pool play.
Team USA got off to a strong start with one match each in the men’s and women’s tournament. Casey Patterson and Jake Gibb cruised to a comfortable victory over Qatar 21-16, 21-16. Playing with new partner April Ross, 37-year-old Kerri Walsh Jennings started her quest for a fourth straight gold medal with an dominant 21-14, 21-13 win over an Australian team.
Behind the most raucous crowd of the Games so far, gold medal favorites Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt won their opening match against Josh Binstock and Sam Schachter of Canada. It wasn’t always easy for the Brazilians, who could never open up much of an advantage and only won the match 21-19, 22-20.
The most exciting match of the day came on the women’s side between medal contenders Barbara Seixas and Agatha Bednarczuk of Brazil and the Czech Republics’ Barbora Hermannova and Marketa Slukova. After dropping the first set, the Brazilians rallied to win the match 19-21, 21-17, 15-11.
In the first men’s match of the tournament, Italy’s Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri easily defeated their opponents from Austria. Poland’s Bartosz and Piotr Kantor also cruised to victory over a squad from Germany.
The only three-set men’s match of the day came between Spain and Austria. After Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl took the first set, Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira won the second and narrowly emerged victorious in the third 15-13.
A three-set women’s match between Switzerland and China ended in bizarre fashion. After Fan Wang and Yuan Yue appeared to have won the first match point and left the court only to return after a successful Swiss challenge and eventually emerge victorious 24-22, 18-21, 15-13.
Elsewhere in the women’s competition, Madelein Meppelink and Marleen Van Iersel dominated their opponents from Venezuela. Spain’s Lilliana Fernandez and Elsa Baquerizo erased a 15-13 second set deficit to beat Argentina.
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The Dutch also picked up a victory on the men’s side, as Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen comfortably beat a team for Russia.
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