• Artūrs Rinkevičs and Ardis Daniels Bedrītis were supposed to participate in the tournament, but Bedrītis got injured. In his place, Edgars Toch went to Portugal unplanned, whose partner Kristians Fokerot went to the European U20 Championship. The Latvians’ opponents in the first round of the qualifiers were Thibaut Gosse and Louis Linens from Belgium, who won 17th place in the world U19 championship this season, and also played unimpressively in “Futures” level tournaments.
• The Latvians started the game convincingly, where they forced the opponents to make regular mistakes, accumulating a four-point lead. After another Belgian mistake and Toča’s block, the score became 8:2. Interestingly, Toča was blocked by Linnen, who simply jumped past the net and caught the ball with one hand. The Belgians took a break, but nothing changed after that. Toch dominated at the net, excelling with blocks or forcing opponents to make mistakes. After the technical break, the Latvian duo relaxed, the difference in the result was reduced to four points, but this did not prevent them from winning the set quite convincingly with 21:15.
• Also in the second set, the first four points were scored by the Latvian beach volleyball players, but the regular errors of the Belgians, not being able to send the ball on the court, increased the advantage of the Latvians. This time, Rinkevičs and Toč did not allow slack, trying to keep the opponents below the 10-point limit. The Latvians played the end of the set flawlessly, with Točas scoring the point after a defensive action – 2-0 (21:15, 21:9).
• Thus, Rinkevičs and Toč are one victory away from entering the main tournament. In the decisive match, the Latvians will meet the Poles Jakub Zdibek and Pavel Lewandowski, who beat the Australians Tomas Hartlease and Alan Niklin 2-0 (21:19, 21:12) in the first match. The game is scheduled at 20:00 at the third square.
“Beach Pro” series tournament games available Viaplay in live broadcasts.
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