Russians posted confident silver win at World U-19 Championship 03.08.2010
The under-19 World Youth Beach Volleyball Championship completed in Porto, Portugal. The Russian national team won medals in men’s and women’s events
On Sunday male and female athletes played semis and later on the bronze and gold winners were decided. Ekaterina Karapischenko (Krasnodar) and Maria Ushkova (Moscow) and Artem Kucherenko (Krasnodar) and Maksim Anufriyev (Vladivostok) got through to the playoffs. Ushkova and Karapischenko earned a berth to the World U-19 Championship final knocking off Rebecca/Juliana Simoes from Brazil. It took them half an hour to beat the Brazilian players in two straight sets. Still the Russian girls failed to get on the podium. The final match against the American tandem of Ross/Corson was tight and extended over three sets. In the first set Ekaterina and Maria fell to the American pair without struggle 10-21, later on they pulled together and forced the match into a tiebreaker 21-18. In the third set the young Russian athletes had no strength left to win and finished as runner-ups 7-15.
In the men’s semi Kucherenko/Anufriyev encountered the Canadian duo of May/del Bianco. Taking the lead in the first set Artem and Maksim couldn’t win the second one but in the tie-breaker they set themselves up to a victory and pulled away to finish with a 15-13 win. The Russian duo moved into the final where they faced the winners of the recent European U-20 Championship in Italy Kantor/Losiak from Poland. After the first set won by the Russian team the Polish players regained leadership securing a 21-19 victory in the second set and later won the tiebreaker. The Polish duo takes their second straight title. Artem and Maksim got silver which they surely enter as an asset.
From August 5-8 the same venue in Porto will host another junior tournament – European U-18 Championship.
Beach Volleyball. U-19 World Championship. Portugal. Women’s
Final
Ross/Croson (USA, 3) – Ushakova/Karapischenko (Russia, 7) – 2-1 (21-10, 18-21, 15-7)
Beach Volleyball. U-19 World Championship. Portugal. Men’s
Final
Kantor/Losyak (Poland, 5) – Kucherenko/Anufriyev (Russia, 24) – 201 (17-21, 21-19, 15-11)
Source: volley.ru
