The matches of the quarterfinals of the men’s and women’s beach volleyball tournament of the 3rd Mediterranean Beach Games “Heraklion 2023” were exciting.
On Thursday September 15th, the Greek champions, Triantafillidi / Matiou, survived with 2-0 set of the French Descamps / Sobezalz, entering the medal zone.
Dionisia Matiou, clearly happy after the victory, noted that “we qualified for the semifinals and we are thrilled. The students from Malia High School came to the stands and supported us and we thank them very much. Now we are aiming for a medal to bring joy to the Greeks.”
On the contrary, the other three Greek teams that participated in the quarterfinals of the event lost and will compete for the 5th-8th places.
In the women’s competition, Paschalaki / Alexoglou were defeated 2-0 by the French team of Vieira / Chamerau. “It was a very difficult match. The French team is more experienced than us. Now we will claim the fifth place in the competition”, Myrto Paschalaki commented after the end of the match.
Without a victory in the quarterfinals for the two Greek duos in the men’s singles.
Kanellos and Terzoglou were defeated 2-0 by the Italians Benzi / Bonifazi.
“We tried our best, but we had a very difficult task. We were playing against the Italian champions, who are aiming for the gold medal. We are tired, but we continue to get a good place in the tournament,” Iasonas Kanellos mentioned after the match.
The other Greek men’s duo of Dallas / Chatzinikolaou also suffered a 2-0 loss to Italians Dal Corso / Viscovich. “We didn’t have the performance we would have liked in the match. The opposing team was very strong and got the qualification rightfully”, said the Greek champion Stavros Dallas.
In their way to the semifinals, the Italians Orsi / Bianchin defeated (2-0) the duo from Cyprus Gusarova D. – Nystrom in the women’s tournament. In Thursday’s afternoon semifinal (19.30), they will face the Greek team of Triandafyllidi / Matiou.
“We are very happy that we achieved our original goal of making the top four. We are playing in the semifinal against the Greek team, who are a good duo and have the warm support of the crowd. We want to go through to the final to secure a medal,” commented Italian, Margherita Bianchin, after the match.
Bianchin / Scampoli also won the Italian victory against the duo from Slovenia (Losvin / Kotnik) 2-0.
In the men’s singles, the qualification to the semifinals was won by the French team Aye Q. / Aye C., defeating 2-0 the Croatian team Zelenika / Skorin. After an exciting match, the Portuguese duo Campos / Pedrosa made it to the last four, beating the Slovenian team of Kolaric / Klasnic 2-1, in a tie-break.
The men’s and women’s semifinal matches will be played on Thursday September 15th afternoon at the Karteros Beach Sports Center, where the classification matches (5-8) will also be played.
The results and the full schedule of the beach volleyball tournament, here:
