After a rough start, Carolina and Maria Antonelli used keywords to bounce back

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Carol and Antonelli talk during a break

Carolina Solberg and Maria Elisa Antonelli had a tough task in hand in their debut in in the Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals presented by Vodafone as the Brazilians were faced with USA’s Summer Ross and Sara Hughes, who had won the World Tour event in Moscow just three days ago.

The Brazilians overcame a 7-1 disadvantage in the first set to pull out a two-set (24-22, 21-18) victory over the Americans and start strong in their first-ever Finals appearance.

“We had some trouble siding out in the start of the game but we figured things out and found a good rhythm,” Carolina commented. “They are a great team and are in very good form after they won last week in Moscow. We really want to do our best here and as we have just one match every day in pool play we’re giving everything we have.”

According to Antonelli, the key for the team’s turnaround was knowing how to encourage each other in the hardest moments of the game.

“We’ve showed multiple times that we can always come back in a game, even when we’re losing badly,” she said. “We agreed on some keywords to use during the games with each other and we communicated really well. The fact that they changed their serving strategy multiple times during the match shows that we did a really good job.”

The World Tour Finals are just the 18th international tournament for the Brazilians, who have progressed a lot since they first shared the court, in June 2017. According to them, the more they play, the better they get.

“We’ve been through some really unique situations over the last weeks and that helped us to win this game,” Antonelli added. “We were really well synchronized despite of our slow start. Carol helped me a lot when I was down and I helped her when she was struggling a little bit in the second set. That’s the nicest thing about our team, we’re always there for each other.”

The Brazilians will return to the Rothenbaum on Thursday, when they will face Canada’s Brandie Wilkerson and Heather Bansley. Hughes and Summer will try to bounce back in the same day, when they play Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude.

It's rally time! Don't miss a moment of #HamburgFinals - watch it live on BeachStream [link in bio 🙋‍♀️] @carol_solberg @mariaelisaantonelli @sarahughesbeach @summernoelross @vodafone_de @hamburg_de @redbullgermany

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