Seeded 45th in the competition and playing in only their fourth FIVB World Tour events together, van Garderen and Varenhorst scored a 2-1 (20-22, 21-19, 16-14) quarterfinal win in 66 minutes over ninth-seeded Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera of Spain. The 2017 World Championships marked the 91st FIVB event for the Spaniards, who have been competing together since 2009.
In becoming the lowest-seeded team in men’s World Championship history to reach the final four, van Garderen and Varenhorst will play fourth-seeded Brazilians Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola in the semifinals. The Brazilians advanced with a 2-1 (17-21, 22-20, 15-10 win in 62 minutes over 13th-seeded Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk of Canada.
In Saturday’s other quarterfinal matches, sixth-seeded Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin of Russia posted a 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) win in 41 minutes over third-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena of the United States and will play 12th-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst of Austria, who out-lasted seventh-seeded Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak of Poland 2-1 (31-33, 21-18, 15-11) in 80 minutes.
The $1-million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1 will feature four men’s matches Sunday at the state-of-the art venue at Donauinsel in Vienna.
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. A total of 96 teams from 40 countries started the competition July 28 with the featured court being the 10,000-seat Red Bull Beach Arena.