beach volleyball, Pro Tour, Nicolai-Cottafava, Italy, Final

The adventure at the Qatar Challenge of Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava, the couple born last summer and thus continuing their growth path, stops in the final against the Poles Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak. In front of the few spectators sitting in the stands of the windy Doha arena, the Azzurri lost 2-0 (21-18, 21-15) against the expert Polish couple who took home the second tournament of the season (they had also won in Tlaxcala, in Mexico, in mid-March). But the Italian team has reached an important second place, just in the fourth tournament together. Ten years, in fact, separate Paolo Nicolai from Samuele Cottafava, but also a hundred international tournaments and this is only the first step of a long journey that has the first goal to be achieved in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The match

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In the final Nicolai-Cottafava try to put pressure on the Poles, but Bryl-Losiak are good at managing the risks and immediately taking that break advantage that they will keep until the end. The blues hold on until the technical time out. Then, the sudden acceleration of the Poles widens the disadvantage which, however, does not disunite the Italian couple who continue to show their game. Nicolai cancels two set points, but on the third attempt, the Poles take home the first set. And the second is a photocopy of the first, with Bryl and Losiak keeping everything in defense and Nicolai and Cottafava trying to come up with some different solutions in the serve and in attack, but never manage to scratch the Polish certainties. Bryl’s wall on Nicolai closes the game and gives the Poles the tournament.

The 12th final

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Paolo Nicolai is the final number 12 in the World Tour (now Beach Pro Tour, to which must be added the 2016 Olympic one, the 2019 pre-Olympic one and the three European championships won between 2014 and 2017), the first with a partner other than Daniele Wolf. A final that confirms the growth of the blue couple who had made their debut in mid-March in the double engagement in Mexico with a ninth place at the Challenge in Tlaxcala and, a week later, a 13th at the Elite 16 in Rosarito, before the fifth place conquered a few days before Easter in the Challenge of Itapema, Brazil. In this tournament Nicolai-Cottafava had made their debut with a 2-1 success in the group against the Austrians Ermacora-Pristauz (who yesterday eliminated the other blue couple Lupo-Ranghieri in the playoffs for the quarter-finals), to surrender with the same score, in the second match against the Brazilians Renato-Vitor Felipe. In the playoffs for the quarter-finals Nicolai-Cottafava beat the French Krou-Gauthier Rat and in the quarterfinals the Chilean cousins ​​Grimalt coached by Paulao (former coach of Nicolai-Lupo). In the semifinals, today at lunchtime, the 2-1 win against the reigning European runners-up, the Dutch Boermans-De Groot.