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CANCÚN, México, April 20, 2021 - Canada’s Sarah
Pavan/Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brazil’s Talita
Antunes/Taiana Lima will play for the gold medal
of the first 4-star FIVB Beach Volleyball World
Tour event in Cancun on Tuesday.
Both teams extended their undefeated runs at the
Playa Delfines to five matches on Monday, when
they won a pair of games in the quarterfinals
and semifinals of the tournament to advance to
the final match of the event.
The reigning world champions, Pavan and Humana-Paredes
qualified for their second final in as many
World Tour events in 2021 as they won the silver
medal at the 4-star Katara Cup, in Doha, Qatar,
in March. The two athletes will be playing in
their 12th World Tour final together and will
try to secure their seventh gold as a team.
In the semifinals, the 34-year-old Pavan and the
28-year-old Humana-Paredes faced Germans Chantal
Laboureur and Cinja Tillmann, who they had
defeated in pool play on Saturday, and posted a
2-0 (21-16, 21-14) victory to move forward.
“Having a couple of days under our belts to play
in these elements, we really narrowed down our
game”, said Humana-Paredes, who was the Best
Setter of the World Tour in 2019. ”I think our
serving has gotten them in trouble and Sarah’s
blocking was phenomenal. They’re a really strong
ball-control team and we knew we had to put
pressure on them from the baseline, which we
did. It’s really good for our confidence that
we’re in the final again. We still have a lot of
things that we want to improve on and it’s very
promising that we’re getting to finals and
there’s still another level that we can bring.”
The 38-year-old Talita and the 36-year-old
Taiana got to the final with a similar campaign
of five wins. The Brazilians prevailed in a
familiar meeting with compatriots Agatha
Bednarczuk and Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa in the
semifinals, securing a 2-1 (21-14, 10-21, 15-13)
triumph to advance to the semifinals.
The pair, who are playing together in the Cancun
Hub tournaments because Talita’s regular partner
Maria Elisa Antonelli is in Brazil building up
her fitness after giving birth to her first son
last year, have won five of the eight finals
they have played together over two stints as
partners, between 2013-2014 and in 2019.
"I think in the first two sets it came down to
which team served better and the third was
actually closer to what a match between these
two teams should be," Talita, a three-time
Olympian, explained. "When Maria decided she
wouldn't come, Tatiana was the only option that
I had in mind. We have great chemistry, played
together not long ago and we trusted we could do
well. The last time I played the Canadians was
in 2017 and they improved so much since then. It
will be a difficult match but as long as we keep
playing with the same energy and the same union,
I think we have what it takes to win."
The gold medal match of the tournament in Cancun
will mark the first meeting between the teams on
the World Tour. |
