The Olympic semifinals are exactly what were hoped for. There are three favorites and one party crasher fighting it out in the final two rounds for beach volleyball glory. The Beachvolley Vikings are in it, the World Champs from Russia The Russian Olympic Committee are in it, Qatar is in it and Latvia is alive and kicking, playing for gold, too.
Tomorrow in the semifinals it will be Mol & Sorum against Plavins & Tocs in the first match of the evening session (Japanese time zone) and Krasilnikov & Stoyanolvskiy taking on Cherif & Ahemd in the second. Lets take a look at how they got there.
The Vikings are back!
There was a time in very recent history when Anders Mol and Christian Sorum were absolutely invincible. Then suddenly they weren’t. They were beaten in Sochi, Ostrava, Gstaad and pool play in Tokyo. Teams were mixing up the strategy a little bit and serving Mol instead of Sorum. The team that did that best at these Olympic Games was Konstantin Semenov & Ilya Leshukov. They only allowed Mol one block and beat the Vikings in two close sets back on July 28th. Now that match feels like ancient history and the Beachvolley Vikings of (not very) old are back.
Yesterday Norway reversed the Pool A result against Russia. Mol only got one block again, but it came early and it seemed to stick in Leshukov’s mind for a few points. Following the block, Leshukov stayed far away from Mol, sending two chips over that Sorum got to easily. With that three point Norway run and Mol siding out flawlessly early on, Norway built a 13-8 lead. Semenov came up with two well placed aces to close the lead to 13-11 but it felt different from their pool play match. Semenov used his ridiculous reach to make Mol look almost little on one play at the net, but Sorum picked up some timely digs and made sure set 1 stayed firmly in the Viking’s hands, 21-17.
The second set was closer with both teams trading the advantage as the Shiokaze Park sand heated up. At 4-3 Mol finished a long back and forth rally by drilling Leshukov right in the chestwith one of his hardest hits. Most of us fans would have gone straight to the ER, but Leshukov fought on bravely. Mol showed his improv ability with a knuckle set on a ball passed into the net that rescued a point. The heat became a big factor late. Leshukov dealt with it very well but Semenov struggled. The Russian defender worked around Mol time and time again to keep his team in it. He won a joust with Anders, his one hand beating Anders’s two. While the teams were trading side outs, it was Norway that had to work harder.
In the end it was Semenov’s exhaustion that allowed Norway to strike. Russia was leading 18-17 when Semenov missed his serve. At 18-18 he hit what looked like an easy angle way out of bounds. Leshukov sided out to make it 19-19, but so did Norway giving Mol and Sorum match point. They served Semenov and he hit a weak cut shot that Sorum had no problem with winning the match and a place in the semifinals for Norway.
Matins Plavins back for more Olympic hardware
In the 2012 Olympics in London, Matins Plavins and Janis Smedins started out as the number 17 seeds. They went home with Olympic bronze medals. He didn’t qualify for the Rio Olympics and this time he and Edgars Tocs finished outside of the top 15 in the Olympic rankings. They wouldn’t be playing in Tokyo if it weren’t for their win in the new Olympic Qualification tournament. Yet here Plavins is again, in an Olympic semifinals, with a chance to medal again. Any question of whether or not they should have made it to Tokyo have long been answered as they continue to beat the best the beach volleyball world has to offer.
Latvia have a men’s and women’s team in the semifinals while Brazil doesn’t have any. Plavins and Tocs are THE reason Brazil have none on the men’s side. For the second match in a row they took out a Brazilian medal contender. After eliminating Evandro and Bruno in the first round, they took out Alison and Alvaro in the quarters. Don’t forget that they beat Krasilnikov & Stoyanovskiy in pool play as well. These guys can beat anyone
Today they kept constant pressure on Brazil. There zero service errors meant Alvaro and Alison never got a point off. Plavins’s digs and Toc’s blocks made sure any lead Brazil managed to build was never safe. They also proved to be in better physical condition, handling the heat and extreme humidity far better than their opponents from the tropical climate. The Brazilians lost because of their mistakes, but the Brazilians made mistakes because of Latvia. When Alison took a jog rather than a sprint to the net after serving, they made him pay twice by crushing the second ball right where he should have been. Alison got more blocks than Tocs, but he also gave away far more points than the efficient Latvians. For a more complete match report, check out the Match of the Day portion on today’s Beach Volley Blog Instagram post.
Ahmed and Cherif continue their ascent
Nicolai & Lupo, Phil & Nick throw any great team at these guys and the result is the same: a win for Qatar. Sometimes it is Ahmed’s defense that wins the points. Tonight it, against the Rio silver medalists from Italy, was Cherif’s blocks that were the difference. Even when he wasn’t getting stuff blocks, he was controlling a soft block well enough to give Ahmed a chance to score points. They are fun to watch because of the way they play and because they are having so much fun. They both hit so hard. Lupo got tattooed by a Cherif rocket. Ahmed lit a few lasers down the seam that hit the sand before Lupo could even flinch.
They made a few hitting errors they shouldn’t have. Cherif made another challenge mid rally that lost a point for the second match in a row (please stop doing that!). After that silly decision to play referee, Nicolai got a block and Cherif hit one out, giving Italy a lead they should never have had. But Qatar weren’t flustered. They showed great patience and played error free down the stretch. It was the experienced Lupo who made a couple of mistakes giving Qatar the lead back.
Very late in the close match, Lupo worked his magic and got a dig of Cherif that he transitioned to equal the score at 19. But Qatar still stayed calm. Ahmed kept siding out with 90 kph blasts down the seam. Finally, leading 22-21, Cherif’s deep flat serve caused Lupo a bit of trouble. Italy couldn’t mount a clean attack and sent a shot over that Cherif dug easily. He finished the point and the match by delivering a mighty left handed blow down the line.
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Krasilnikov & Stoyanovskiy shifting into high gear
Earlier in Tokyo the World Champs were all out of sorts. Viacheslav Krasilnikov & Oleg Stoyanovskiy couldn’t side out against Mexico and were very lucky that the referee took a sudden interest in calling lifts on match point after not calling any for the first 120 points. The Russians looked timid in their loss against Plavins and Tocs. Ondrej Perusic came out of COVID lockdown and nearly ended the Russian’s Olympics at the pool play stage. But they are a different team now.
They faced Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler in their quarterfinal match and were the better team throughout. Krasilnikov was the difference in this match. He has had more digs and higher kill rates in previous matches, but he was huge in this one. Twice he made phenomenal sets from the baseline while running away from the net, giving Stoyanovlskiy an open net and an easy kill. The first time clinched set one. The other was at a tense moment in the second set when it looked like Stoyanovskiy had been aced.
Thole and Wickler made the second set interesting fighting back to 18-18 as Wickler’s service pressure led to an overpass that Thole put away. The Germans had the lead in their grasp on the next play as Clemens made a dig but his transition attack sailed long. The missed opportunity was pounced on by Russia as Stoyanovskiy tipped a Wickler shot to himself and slammed it back into the sand on match point a few plays later.