Five days ago, Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak started their partnership off in style by winning gold at the Beach Pro Tour tournament in Tlexcala, Mexico. Now, less than a week later, they are on track to following that up with an amazing Pool Play performance in the Elite 16.
After starting the tournament on Thursday with a victory over Austrian qualifiers Robin Seidl & Philipp Waller they moved on to the world’s heavy weights on Friday. First they matched up against number one ranked team Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar and started the scoring immediately with a block (see video). They followed it up with a composed 43 minutes of volleyball where they withstood a constant barrage of pressure from the Qataris for a 21-16, 25-23 win.
In the evening they faced Evandro and Alvaro of Brazil. What do you do to start a match against the world’s best server? Why not hit an ace of your own? That is exactly what Bartosz Losiak did. Evandro got his aces in the match, but Bryl and Losiak were able to generate a consistent enough sideout game to prevent any major Brazilian runs. Poland won their night match 21-15, 21-19.
Bryl and Losiak did it all to go 3-0 and win their pool. Block, serve, defend, option and extend rallies that looked like lost causes.
In the quarterfinals they will face Italians Adrian Carambula & Enrico Rossi who finished second in Pool C. The semi finals are Saturday night with the medal matches taking place on Sunday for both the men and the women.