Chronicle Herald
Three Canadian teams in hunt for beach medals
By BRIAN FREEMAN Sports Reporter
Sat, Sep 3 – 4:54 AM
Danny Demyanenko of Canada spikes the ball against Italy in a match at the FIVB Swatch junior world beach volleyball championships in Halifax on Friday. Demyanenko and Garrett May lost in two sets but advanced to today’s quarter-finals. (Adrien Veczan)
THREE Canadian teams remain in the hunt for medals at the FIVB Swatch world junior beach volleyball championships in Halifax.
Top men’s seeds Garrett May and Danny Demyanenko of Toronto, sixth-ranked Fiodar Kazhamiaka of Waterloo, Ont., and William Sidgwick of Toronto, and top women’s seeds Victoria Altomare and Melissa Humana-Paredes of Toronto advanced to today’s quarter-finals with victories in the round of 16 Friday afternoon.
May and Demyanenko rallied from a set down to defeat Oliver Kaszas and Sebastian Kaszas of Denmark 18-21, 21-16, 15-12 in the single-elimination bracket play that began Friday afternoon at the Sands at Salter waterfront stadium after the conclusion of the round robin.
“We turned it around in the second set with some solid side-outs by Danny and we started to play some D and Danny (had) some big blocks,” said May, 19, who won the 2010 junior championship in Turkey with former partner Sam Schachter of Toronto.
“Teams, when they play us, I expect them to get fired up to play but it gives me confidence that I’ve been here and I’ve won it before so I can do it again.”
Kazhamiaka and Sidgwick won their fourth straight match by besting Henry Glockner and Dominik Stork of Germany 21-13, 21-15 and Altomare and Humana-Paredes knocked out the Austrian duo of Teresa Andessner and Christina Wallinger by a score of 21-14, 21-15.
“All we can think about right now is just going for that gold because we have nothing to lose and we want to make our country proud,” said Altomare, whose team lost its first two matches Thursday before downing Camilla Nergard and Signe Tauboll of Norway 21-10, 21-9 on Friday morning to sneak into the round of 16 with a 1-2 record.
Demyanenko and May lost their final round-robin match Friday and then dropped a tough first set to the Danes before regrouping to move into the quarter-finals.
“We really meshed as a team,” Demyanenko said of their comeback. “I feel really confident playing with Garret getting those really big digs and getting those key points.”
The top 16 of 24 teams from both the men’s and women’s draws moved into the single-elimination bracket. Demyanenko and May finished first in their pool with a 2-1 mark and Kazhamiaka and Sidgwick topped their four-team group with a 3-0 slate.
“We’ve been getting better and better so tomorrow will be even better, I hope,” Kazhamiaka said. “Our goal is to win.”
Like May and Demyanenko, Canada’s No. 2 team was just formed this season. Sidgwick said the victory over the Germans represented some of their best work.
“We just used our physicality to our advantage. That’s our game — we just hit every ball; we’re big players.”
Kazhamiaka and Sidgwick play ninth-ranked Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak of Poland in today’s men’s quarter-finals, which begin at 12 noon. May and Demyanenko meet No. 4 Ruslan Bykanov and Andrey Bolgov of Russia.
In the women’s quarters, Altomare and Humana-Paredes go up against fifth-ranked Victoria Bieneck and Cinja Tillmann of Germany at 10 a.m.
The men’s and women’s semifinals are this afternoon. The gold- and bronze-medal games on both sides are Sunday afternoon.
Two other Canadian teams advanced to Friday’s round of 16 but were eliminated with losses.
Nick Del Bianco and Ben Chow of Vancouver, seeded seventh on the men’s side, moved on with a 2-1 record before dropping a 21-13, 21-18 decision to Abolins Armands and Haralds Regza of Latvia.
Toronto’s Alexandra Hudson and Ottawa’s Charlotte Sider, the women’s sixth seeds, got past the round robin with a 1-2 mark. They fell 21-8, 21-18 to second-ranked Americans Tara Roenicke and Rebecca Strehlow.
Sarah Gosselin of Granby, Que., and Sara Robichaud of Gatineau, Que., finished the round robin winless in three starts and didn’t advance.
