The Olympic silver medalists Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler are in the round of 16 of the Beach Volleyball World Cup. The Hamburg duo prevailed against Latvians Martins Plavins/Kristians Fokerots in Adelaide, Australia. In the first set the Germans still had some problems at 22:20, the second round went smoothly with 21:13 to Ehlers/Wickler.
“That was definitely the best tournament performance so far. We had a bit of problems in the first set, but then we stayed calm,” said Wickler. Ehlers added: “We’re looking forward to the next game and will continue to do everything we can.” On Thursday, the silver medalists from Paris will face the Norwegian top team Anders Mol/Christian Sörum at 7 a.m. Central European time.
A total of five German duos reached the round of the best 16 teams. The German champions Lukas Pfretzschner and Sven Winter only needed two sets to defeat the slightly higher rated Australians Mark Nicolaidis/Izac Carracher 2-0 (21:15, 21:17). Sandra Ittlinger/Anna Grüne eliminated the Czechs Marketa Svozilova/Marie-Sara Stochlova 2:1 (16:21, 21:18, 15:11). Linda Bock/Louisa Lippmann and Melanie Paul/Lea Kunst had already secured their place on Tuesday.
Henning/Wüst fail because of the favored Swedes
Paul Henning and Lui Wüst put up a strong fight against the favored Swedes Jacob Hölting Nilsson/Elmer Andersson and lost 21:23 and 17:21. This makes Henning/Wüst the second German team after Svenja Müller and Cinja Tillmann to be eliminated in the first knockout round.