Winning the pool is good for more ways than one for Lucena/Dalhausser

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Nick and Phil have battled the jetlag to win both of their matches in Hamburg

If you want to get in touch with Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena on Friday, forget it! They’ll be sleeping!

The American duo booked their place in the Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals quarterfinals with a straight sets win over Austrians Clemens Doppler and Alex Horst – despite still suffering from the effects of jetlag having arrived on Monday.

And the 2015 World Tour Finals silver medalists will be putting their feet up and catching 40 winks on Friday to in a bid to freshen up ahead of their big matches over the weekend…not that they’ve struggled on the sand with two wins out of two.

“It’s pretty impressive to beat Spain and Austria, especially the way Clemens and Alex are playing,” said Nick after their victory. “We’ve not been sleeping well but we’ve been doing this kind of thing for a while now and have our little routine. We have a day off tomorrow and hope we sleep well tonight.”

Winning the pool was always the goal for 2008 Olympic champ Dalhausser but the most important thing now on the Thin Beast’s mind is to get some much-needed shut-eye.

“Sleeping has been a problem, we’re not accustomed to being here yet,” said the 37-year-old. “It’s a kind of snowball effect and I’ll be taking a sleeping pill tonight so tomorrow I can catch up on some sleep.”

On the win itself over the World Championship silver medalists, Dalhausser added: “As my mum would say we did it ‘mit Ach und Krach’ – we scraped through. Nothing here is going to be easy but we handled their serve well and played the right plays at the right time.”

Defeat for Doppler/Horst means the popular Austrians will face a first elimination round match on Friday – a game you’ll be able to see live on BeachStream. Click here to sign-up for free.