Reigning world champions Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos of Brazil, the number one team in the FIVB World Ranking and the top seeds of the tournament, handed US qualifiers Terese Cannon & Sarah Sponcil their first loss of the tournament. Despite the defeat, the Americans kept their place on top of the Pool A table to progress to the quarterfinals. The victory also secured the South Americans’ spot in the eighthfinals as they ended up in second place on a 2-1 win-loss record. In what proved to be a crucial battle for the third place in the pool, USA’s Kristen Nuss & Taryn Kloth claimed a win over European champions Anastasija Samoilova & Tina Graudina of Latvia, their first of the tournament, but enough to overtake the opponents in the standings and send them home.
Last year’s Ostrava winners Cinja Tillmann & Svenja Muller of Germany and Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallists Anouk Verge-Depre & Joana Mader of Switzerland registered their second victories in Friday morning’s second leg of Pool B action. Capitalizing on plentiful opponent errors, the Germans outpaced Italy’s Marta Menegatti & Valentina Gottardi to take a narrow win, while the Swiss hammered out a shutout of the world’s fourth-ranked team Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands, to set up a head-to-head clash with each other for the first place in the pool.
In a remake of last year’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship third place match, when a grave shoulder injury practically cost Mader and her partner not only the bronze medals, but also the next over 10 months of competing, Tillmann & Muller outplayed the opponents to snatch a victory on a 20-point match high from Tillmann and proceeded straight to Saturday’s quarterfinals. Second-seeded Stam & Schoon survived the face-to-face battle for the third place in the pool with a comeback win over Menegatti & Gottardi to move on to the eighthfinals. Stam was on fire with 29 points towards the victory, including six kill blocks and three aces. On the other side of the net, Gottardi finished with 20 points, including five aces and three blocks.
