CANCUN, México, April 27, 2021 - The second
women’s tournament of the FIVB Beach Volleyball
World Tour at the Cancun Hub ended in the same
way the first one did, with a Brazilian team
standing on top of the podium at the Playa
Delfines.
If last week Talita Antunes and Taiana Lima took
the title, this time it was Rio 2016 Olympic
silver medallist Agatha Bednarczuk and two-time
World Tour Most Outstanding Player Eduarda
‘Duda’ Lisboa, who took their country to the top
with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) gold medal match win
against Russians Nadezda Makroguzova and
Svetlana Kholomina.
“Agatha was incredible today,” Duda analysed.
“She was very aggressive from the first side out
and she was the best player in the match. It
makes me really happy that we got to be on the
podium for the third tournament in a row, it’s
really important for us and shows our
evolution.”
The result rewards the impressive consistency
the Brazilians have been showing at the start of
the international season as they are the only
team to collect medals in all three 4-star
events played so far following third-place
finishes at both last month’s Katara Cup in Doha
and the first event in Cancun last week.
“It feels amazing,” the 37-year-old Agatha
reacted. “We were chasing this gold medal after
taking bronze in the first two events. We wanted
so much to be at the top of the podium. We are
mentally exhausted because we got to play every
day in each of the two tournaments and now we
need a couple of days off to recover for the
third one because every time we step on the
court we’re hungry to get another medal.”
Americans April Ross and Alix Klineman, who won
the first 4-star tournament of the year, in
Doha, last month, returned to the podium after
finishing ninth last week in Cancun. The two
defeated Dutch veterans Sanne Keizer and
Madelein Meppelink 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) to take
bronze in Mexico.
“I think we had some tough serving and we
experimented a lot on defence and we found a
couple of things that worked a little bit,” the
31-year-old Klineman explained. “But mostly, it
was about staying tough and staying together.
It’s really hard to play in this heat and much
more against a really good team like that, so we
just did the best we could.”
A two-time Olympic medallist, the 38-year-old
Ross is excited about the team’s form three
months before the start of the Tokyo Olympics.
“That’s an amazing start of the season,” she
said. “This was a really, really hard medal to
win, this bronze right here. In this atmosphere,
with the wind and the heat, I think it’s a
pretty good finish. We’re looking to improve
next week but I’m very happy with this
performance.”
The third and final event of the Cancun Hub
starts on Tuesday with country quota matches for
teams from Brazil and the United States. The
qualification tournament will be played on
Wednesday and the main draw will run until
Sunday, the day on which the medal matches will
be played.
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