Anders and Christian lose to Dutch – but still reach the semis

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A win was still not good enough for the Dutch, while the Vikings still advanced to the last four

There were mixed emotions for both teams in the final pool play match in Pool B as Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sørum lost their unbeaten record but still managed to qualify for the Hamburg Finals semifinals.

Dutchmen Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen needed to win themselves to qualify for the quarterfinals but, in the end, it wasn’t enough as their point ratio was less than Latvians Edgars Tocs and Martins Plavins.

“We heard them saying that they would end our winning streak and we promised it wouldn’t be easy, as it wasn’t,” said Anders. “We could have won the second set as well, so it was a really close battle. Losing always hurts, but they were better.”

Christian added: “It was a tough game. I think we played well, but the Dutch anticipated a little bit better, they served really strong during the whole match and had better tactics. We’ll watch the quarterfinals and relax and prepare for the semifinals.”

Naturally there was ultimately disappointment for the Dutch Olympic bronze medalists, who leave Hamburg without a chance of playing in the knockout stages.

“We came out here to do much more. Finishing seventh is definitely not what we wanted,” said Alexander. “It’s disappointing but we need to take the learning points and keep improving as we did in the end of this season.”

Robert added: “We’re not satisfied at all. Of course it’s nice to win and we wanted to end their winning streak, but we wanted to continue in the tournament. We knew it would be really tough, but I’m disappointed that we’re out so early. With all these great teams here, there’s pretty a much a 50/50 chance we win or lose a game and unfortunately we were in the bad side of it a couple of times.”

The line-up for the men’s quarterfinals are now set, Fijalek/Bryl take on Italians Lupo/Nicolai, with the winners set to take on Kantor/Losiak in the semifinals.

In the second men’s quarterfinals, Wickler/Thole of Germany take on Plavins/Tocs. Whoever comes out on top in this match will meet Mol/Sørum for a place in the final.