Brazilians overcome bad pool play to earn their first win

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Larissa and Talita's first win of the tournament secured them a place in the last eight

Talita Antunes is hoping she and teammate Larissa Maestrini can replicate Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst’s feat from last year and win back their World Tour Finals crown.

The Brazilian pair won their first match of the Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals after two pool play defeats by beating Canada’s Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson in straight sets to book a quarterfinal meeting with Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude.

And the 2015 champions are looking to Ludwig/Walkenhorst for inspiration for glory in Hamburg – 12 months ago the Olympic and World champs also lost both pool play matches before going onto lift the title.

“Last year Laura and Kira lost their two pool play matches, so these things happen,” Talita told us after their 27-25, 21-16 win over the North Americans. “We can’t lose our focus or our minds we have to just think about the next match.

“We’ll take it step by step but today is a new day. We played much better than before and without mistakes.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to play more games but we’ll see what happens. We didn’t play well in our first two games but I’m not sad, I’m happy because we have started the single elimination with a win so things can only get better.”

The women’s quarterfinal line-up is now complete as Czech stars Barbora Hermannová and Marketa Sluková beat Americans Summer Ross and Brooke Sweat in three sets.

Their prize for their victory is a meeting with Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and 19-year-old star Duda.

Full women’s quarterfinal line-up:

Ludwig/Walkenhorst v Heidrich/Verge-Depre
Huberli/Betschart v Pavan/Humana-Paredes
Agatha/Duda v Hermannnova/Slukovaa
Larissa/Talita v Laboureur/Sude

All four matches will be screened live on BeachStream – subscribe now!