Austrian, Brazilian & Norwegian Women Post Otera Open Quarter-final Wins

Teams from Austria, Brazil and Norway secured semi-final spots here Friday afternoon at the US$380,000 Otera Open with seven of the eight players in the “final four” being associated with past successes in this southern Norwegian resort city.

Highlighting the play Friday was three-straight elimination wins by Nila Ann Hakedal and Ingrid Torlen over teams from Italy, Germany and Australia as the ninth-seeded Norwegians rebounded from a setback Wednesday afternoon to advance to their second-straight Otera Open “final four”.

Hakedal and Torlen will also get a chance to redeem themselves against one of the players that helped defeat the Norwegians in the 2008 Otera Open title match as Maria Antonelli returns to the site of her first SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal with new partner Talita Antunes as the Brazilians advanced to Saturday’s second semi-final earlier Friday.

Saturday’s first semi-final will feature a rematch of an earlier confrontation in the third annual Otera Open as the eighth-seeded Schwaiger sisters (Doris and Stefanie) challenge top-seeded Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca of Brazil. On Thursday, the Schwaigers defeated the Brazilians 21-17 and 21-13 in 34 minutes. Like the Norwegians, Juliana and Larissa posted three elimination wins Friday over pairs from Germany, Austria and Brazil.

After defeating 11th-seeded Daniela Gioria/Giulia Momoli of Italy (21-11, 24-22, 42 minutes) and fourth-seeded Sara Goller/Laura Ludwig of Germany (21-16, 25-23, 49), Hakedal and Torlen advanced to their first SWATCH FIVB World Tour semi-final this year and sixth overall with a 21-16 and 21-13 win in 37 minutes over 20th-seeded Louise Bawden and Becchara Palmer of Australia.

After losing to the Schwaigers Thursday, Juliana and Larissa rebounded with elimination victories Friday over sixth-seeded Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler of Germany (21-17, 21-18, 45), fifth-seeded Barbara Hansel/Sara Montagnolli of Austria (21-14, 21-16, 37) and third-seeded Vanilda Leão/Renata Ribeiro of Brazil (21-18, 21-14, 39).

Juliana and Larissa will be playing in their second Otera Open “final four” after the Brazilians won the inaugural event in 2007. The pair missed the 2008 stop due to Juliana’s knee surgery that forced her to withdraw from the Beijing Olympics with Larissa. The Brazilians will be playing in their 57th SWATCH FIVB World Tour semi-final as Juliana and Larissa have won five gold medals this season to increase their career total together to 26.

The Schwaigers advanced to the Otera Open “final four” for the second-straight season as the Austrians finished third in 2008 for their first-ever SWATCH FIVB World Tour medal. The Schwaigers’ 21-15 and 21-13 quarter-final victory in 38 minutes over Bawden and Palmer avenged a 21-15 and 21-15 elimination quarter-final setback in 34 minutes to the Australians last week in Poland.

Antonelli and Talita, seeded second in the 32-team Otera Open Main Draw, scored a 21-19 and 24-22 win in the quarter-finals of the winner’s bracket over Leão and Renata in 38 minutes. Leão played in the 2008 Otera Open finale with Antonelli after Renata and Talita had placed fourth at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Playing together for the first-time this season, Talita and Antonelli will be playing in their eighth semi-final this season.

The 11th SWATCH FIVB World Tour event for both women and men in 2009 continues through the weekend. The women’s “final four” matches will be Saturday with the men’s semi-finals and medal matches scheduled for Sunday as the winning teams for each gender will split the $30,000 first-place prizes.

Featuring $7.2-million in prize money, the 2009 SWATCH FIVB World Tour continues through the last week of October and first week of November with the men’s final event in China and the women’s last stop in Thailand. Following the Otera Open, two more double gender events remain in Europe with stops in Finland (Aland) and The Netherlands (The Hague). The women’s last European event is a mid-September stop in Barcelona.

Victorious start for Bulgaria and the Czech Republic in Varna

The organizing team of Bulgaria started off with a convincing victory over Portugal in the first match of the 3rd Round Tournament in Varna which serves as the final qualifier for the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championship. The hosts sailed through in three straight sets (25-22, 25-16, 26-24) to take an early lead in the standings.
The first set was relatively even-sided, but after the first technical break Bulgaria took a small lead and did not let go until the end with fantastic attacks from star player Matey Kaziyski, but also with many serving errors. In the second set, Kaziyski started to get more support in attack from Vladimir Nikolov and Todor Aleksiev, as well as from the Bulgarian much-improved serving and blocking. Portugal’s very good defense was not enough to stay in contention and the set closed with a crushing 25-16. The visiting team trailed behind the Southern Europeans at both technical breaks in the third set, but was able to come back from three points down to tie at 22, 23 and 24 only to lose the following two rallies and, thus, the set and the match. Matey Kaziyski topped the best scorers’ chart with 18 points. Valdir Sequeira became Portugal’s most prolific player with 15 points. At the post-game press conference both head coach Juan Diaz and captain Joao Jose stated that it was the more experienced team that finally won the match. “It was difficult in the beginning - we were a little bit nervous. In the third set Portugal improved their play and it was difficult for us to attack, especially in side-out. We made several mistakes, but fortunately we won. For tomorrow I hope that our serve will work better, because without good serving it will be very difficult against stronger opponents,” Bulgaria’s head coach Silvano Prandi said. The Lions’ new captain Vladimir Nikolov was pleased to see that the months of heavy training under Prandi started to give some results and positive feedbacks.


In the second match of the day, the Czech Republic beat Holland 3-1 (23-25, 25-13, 25-23, 25-21). The Dutch team prevailed in the first set, despite some excellent digging demonstrated by the Czechs. Although Peter Blangé’s men were up in the score throughout the set, the ending was dramatic after the Central Europeans tied at 23. Some excellent attacking and especially blocking from Zdenek Hanik’s team made the second set completely one-sided and the Czechs walked over the Dutch with a stunning 25-13. Thanks to David Konecny’s superb attacking in the third set, his team managed to leave their opponents behind through most of the game. This time the Dutch kept the intrigue by tying at 23, but after a fierce ace by captain Ondrej Hudecek, it went the Czechs’ way this time. The fourth set was also kept in equilibrium until the very end when the Czechs persevered to seal this important victory. Czech spiker David Konecny was practically unstoppable for the Dutch block and contributed 25 points to the win, thus becoming the game’s top scorer. Peter Platenik added 19 for the Czechs and Robert Horstink accounted for 15 points on the Dutch side. “Today we played as a real team, we made fewer mistakes and fought harder,” Czech player Peter Platenik stated after the match. “The Dutch team is really good and we were afraid we might lose, but our mentality was very strong during the match” “We played o.k. in the first set; the second was very bad for us. Then the game actually started. The Czech Republic was more determined in the critical points in sets 3 and 4,” Dutch coach Blangé said. “We lost one match, but the tournament is still running and we know what we have to do”.

Serbia and Spain score important victories in their opening matches in Kragujevac

During the first competition day of the 3rd Round Qualifying Tournament to the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championship, Spain managed to beat Estonia 3-1 (22-25, 25-21, 25-17, 25-14), after having faced some troubles in the first set, while Serbia easily outclassed Romania in three straight sets in front of 3200 spectators at the „Jezero“ Hall of Sports in Kragujevac.
The Spanish team successfully started their qualifying session beating Estonia even though they suffered a lot in the first set when they simply couldn’t find the right pace. In the second set things started to look better for Julio Velasco’s team that recovered very well from a shocking start into the match. Estonia managed to come close by the end of the set, but this part of the match was from the start in the hands of the Spaniards. In the third and fourth sets, the Spaniards were unstoppable and they ended this match fairly easily. After 106 minutes, the final result was a 3-1 for the reigning European Champions.


Miguel Angel Falasca, captain of the Spanish team, said: “This is a very tough tournament because it is very important to qualify for the World Championship. Nowadays, good volleyball is being played all over Europe. We started the match very nervously and the Estonian team played very well in the first set. Fortunately, we managed to come back, we started playing better, and from that moment on our rivals had a difficult time in trying to catch us. We are happy for this victory, but this is only the first step. I hope we’ll win tomorrow against Romania and qualify before the last day of the competition”.
Estonian captain Kert Tobal added: “The first set we played really well, and we had pretty good serve, so we made it very difficult to control the reception for the Spanish side. You know, if you serve well everything gets very easy. Unfortunately, after the first set we couldn’t maintain our good performance in serving, the Spanish side started playing better and we simply couldn’t adjust to the new circumstances on the field”.

It was only until the middle of the first set that the Romanian team could keep up with this year’s World League runner-ups in the second match slated for the opening day. In the first two sets, the hosts of Serbia imposed their game and easily finished the job leaving behind the Romanians at 17 and 15 points respectively. The visitors did manage to wake up in the third set and get a 4-point lead (8-4) at the first technical time-out. Serbia slowly picked up the points and by the second technical time-out it was 16-15 for the host team. However, the visiting team dug deep once again and got back to win the third set 25-22. In the fourth set, Serbia was too strong and right from the start the host team clearly showed the intention to wrap things up and end the match. After 76 minutes of play, the final result was 3-1 (25-17, 25-15. 22-25, 25-18) for the hosts.
Serbian captain Nikola Grbic: “We were very focused today, especially in the first two sets and we continued with good performances after the World League Final Six in Belgrade. However, in the third set we were a little bit more relaxed and they punished us right away. We lost 7 points in a row on a float serve of the Romanian setter and this should never happen, but we must work on that. We need time, obviously we are not 100% ready, but this is a very important victory for us and I hope we can repeat it tomorrow”.
Alexandru Bogdan Olteanu, Romanian captain, concluded: “This is a good start of a long journey for us. We are still a young and inexperienced team, and having that in mind this was a good match for us. I hope we improve our game even more and I know we will be better in the future”.
On the second day of the tournament, Romania will face Spain at 18.00h, while Serbia meets Estonia at 20.30h.