Amsterdam, the Netherlands, July 2, 2015 – Juliana Felisberta and Maria Antonelli won an all-Brazilian match to advance to the quarterfinals of the Netherlands 2015, FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on Thursday.
The seventh seeds defeated former partners and second seeds Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes, but had to fight back after losing the first set to win 2-1 (19-21, 21-18, 15-13) and set up a clash against Canada’s Heather Bansley and Sarah Pavan.
“After the first set we thought about the points we gave away,” Maria Antonelli said. “We gave away three or four with our service and Juliana touched the net twice, but we gave them too many points. In the second and third we didn’t make so many mistakes and that is why we won.
“We have won nothing yet, we are only in the quarterfinals. We hope to think about three more games. We have Canada now and we have to think about them.”
Bansley and Pavan didn’t hang around when they faced Kazakhstan’s Tatyana Mashkova and Irina Tsimbalova 2-0 (21-15, 21-10).
“We wanted to come out hard and come out strong and dominate,” Bansley said. “It is always nice to have a shorter game, especially in this heat and give us a little bit more preparation for tonight’s match.
“It is going to be a tough, but any match from now on is, so we’re just going to prepare as we always do and be ready tonight.”