Vienna, Austria, August 1, 2017 - Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas were perfect at the FIVB’s 2015 World Championships in the Netherlands in winning eight-straight matches together to claim their gold medals, but the Brazilians have stumbled in the 2017 edition with different partners.
After eighth-seeded Barbara and Fernanda Alves completed Pool H play here Monday with a 1-2 record to finish third behind pairs from Brazil and Switzerland, the third-seeded Agatha and Eduarda "Duda" Lisboa dropped a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) Pool C decision in 34 minutes to 22nd-seeded Madelein Meppelink/Sophie van Gestel of the Netherlands to end up third in their group Tuesday.
The setback left Agatha and Duda with identical 2-1 Pool C match marks with the Dutch and 27th-seeded Julie Gordon/Camille Saxton of Canada. To break the three-way tie, the point ratio in matches involving the three teams was used with Meppelink/van Gestel topping the group at 1.026, the Canadians second at 1.022 and Agatha/Duda third at 0.958.
Other teams winning group titles Tuesday were top-seeded Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca of Brazil (Pool A), second-seeded Chantal Laboureur/Juliana Sude of Germany (Pool B) and fifth-seeded Summer Ross/Brooke Sweat of the United States (Pool E).
Winning women’s pools on Monday were fourth-seeded Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst of Germany (Pool D), sixth-seeded Barbora Hermannova/Marketa Slukova (Pool F), seventh-seeded Melissa Humana-Paredes/Sarah Pavan of Canada (Pool G), ninth-seeded Maria Antonelli/Carolina Salgado of Brazil (Pool I), 10th-seeded Nina Betschart/Tanja Hüberli of Switzerland (Pool J), 13th-seeded Kristyna Kolocova/Michala Kvapilova (Pool L), 14th-seeded Lauren Fendrick/April Ross of the United States (Pool K) and 32nd-seeded Taiana Lima/Eliza Maia of Brazil (Pool H).
The $1-million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1 will feature the final eight men’s pool play matches and four lucky losers matches on Tuesday along with 16 women’s elimination matches on the three courts at the state-of-the art venue at Donauinsel.
A total of 216-matches will be contested over a 10-day period at the World Championships where the winning men’s and women’s teams will each split the $60,000 first-place prizes. The women’s medal matches will be played on August 5 and the men’s on August 6. With 96 teams from 40 countries in the competition, pool play highlights the first six days of play with the featured court being the 10,000-seat Red Bull Beach Arena.
