Xiamen sees same winners from Russian and Brazil as The Hague
Teams from Russia and Brazil took the gold medals at the FIVB 4-star in Xiamen (China). Just as at The Hague beginning of January, Ana Patricia/Rebecca and Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Viacheslav Krasilnikov claimed the gold medals.
The Russian top team posted a convincing final win in an all-European final against Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira from Spain (21:19, 21:13). In the semifinals they had beaten Italians Enrico Rossi and Adrian “Mr. Skyball” Carambula. The Spanish had advanced to the final after beating Taylor Crabb/Jack Gibb (USA) and the world’s number one, Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sørum before. For Oleg Stoyanovskiy it was the second Xiamen win in a row after winning last year’s edition with his former partner Igor Velichko.
On the women’s side, it was again Brazilians Ana Patricia/Rebecca being victorious after beating top-seeds Marketa Slukova/Barbora Hermannova in the gold medal match. In both sets, the Czechs had several set points but put themselves in trouble with numerous serving errors. The Brazilians fought back and won in two sets (25:23, 26:24). In the semifinals Ana Patricia/Rebecca had beaten US team Sara Hughes and Summer Ross in two sets as well (21:18, 21:17) after eliminating the world’s number one Brandie Wilkerson and Heather Bansley (Canada) in the quarterfinals.
The young Brazilians have surprised with strong results recently. Not only did they win The Hague in January but also the FIVB Qinzhou 3-star as well as silver at the Yangzhou 4-star. Ana Patricia:
“This is also special for us. It is a very important year because of the Olympic Games. We are very happy”.
