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DOHA, Qatar, March 12, 2021 - The top three
teams of the FIVB World Ranking took the medals
at the Katara Beach Volleyball Cup 4-star in
Doha. Second-seeded Alix Klineman and April
Ross of USA claimed the historic first Doha
gold for women, their fifth on the FIVB Beach
Volleyball World Tour so far.
The number one pair in the world, world
champions Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes of
Canada settled for the silver. They now have 11
World Tour medals on their belt.
Third-seeded Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk and
Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) claimed third place
and the bronze. It was their 16th medal out of
33 participations on the World Tour.
Full of fresh energy and desire for victory,
both teams entered the gold medal match engaging
in a tough point-for-point battle. Halfway
through the first set, Alix and April reacted to
a four-point breakaway by Pavan and Melissa with
a five-point run of their own.
And it was a battle for every point again, with
frequent changes in the lead into the money
time, when the Americans denied the first set
point for the Canadians and April hit the winner
for 22-20. The tight fight continued in the
second set, but towards the end of it Alix and
April put more precision into their game and
edged out to a 2-0 (22-20, 21-18) victory.
“It means so much! We are so grateful to be
here. We felt so welcome here. It was an amazing
tournament, amazingly run, and to come out on
top, especially at the first event in so long is
so exciting. We worked as hard as we could work
and it still feels like there is a lot of room
for improvement. Against that team, it’s really
tough and I felt like we pushed each other. So
we are going to take notes, go back and continue
to work hard,” April said right after receiving
the trophy.
“It was amazing to be back! A little strange to
be on the court again, but the feeling is really
good. We are continuing to get better and better
as we play more and more. This was an amazing
starting point, but by no means are we happy and
satisfied, so we want to get back to work and
improve even more,” said Alix.
Agatha and Duda stormed into the first set of
the bronze medal match against USA's Emily
Stockman and Kelley Kolinske with a 5-0 run. The
Americans tried fighting back, but the
Brazilians held their ground to win the set with
a difference. The second set was a little more
competitive. Still, Agatha and Duda stayed well
in control of the scoreboard and cruised on to a
2-0 (21-13, 21-14) win.
“We are feeling very well. We lost twice in this
tournament, so we felt a little bad about it.
But we thought a lot about what we were doing
wrong, and when we came back for the bronze
medal match, we put in all our energy and our
intelligence, because it was very hot and windy
and playing in the wind is difficult. The
tournament was perfect. We were in a safety
bubble and we could focus on our game.
Everything worked perfectly and I hope we’ll
have many more tournaments on the calendar,”
37-year-old Agatha said. |
