Lupo/Nicolai want to replicate European Championship success

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Italians Lupo/Nicolai in action in their opening match as double European champions

After exiting the World Championships in a disappointing 17th place, Italians Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai are now eyeing World Tour Finals glory after enjoying European success last week.

Last summer’s Olympic silver medalists have enjoyed a good season on the World Tour, winning their first Swatch Major Series medal with a silver in Poreč.

However after being knocked out in Vienna at the first eliminations stage, the Italians bounced back to secure their second successive European Championship title in Latvia last week.

Now Paolo is hoping they take the positives from that win into their matches at the Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals presented by Vodafone in Hamburg.

“I think it’s important that we take the confidence from playing and winning in the Euros,” the blocker told us afterward their straight sets win over Canadian wildcards Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk.

“We’ve had a good season but we went out of the World Champs too early so it was important to do a good job in the European Championships.

“It will give us confidence, playing against the best teams in the world and now we’re here I think we can do a good job.”

Daniele added: “We’ve played well last week in the European Championships and we need to keep doing that. This was a big result for us. We don’t have a specific goal on this tournament. We just want to play well every match.”

The Italians now have the rest of the day off to prepare for their second pool play match on Wednesday but for Saxton/Schalk they are in action again in the final match of Wednesday when they take on Germans Markus Böckermann and Lorenz Schümann on the Red Bull Beach Arena at 9pm CET. You can watch the game live on BeachStream – click here to sign-up!