Beach volleyball - Vienna

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Ronja Klinger

(Bild: GEPA)

Beach volleyball players Dorina and Ronja Klinger have made it through to the intermediate round of the Elite 16 home tournament at Vienna's Heumarkt!

Although the Styrians lost their third group match against Brazilians Agatha/Rebecca 0:2 (-12,-17) on Thursday, they were lucky to come third in their Pool D. Earlier, Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst had lost their first group match 0:2 (-15, -19) against Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot from the Netherlands.

"We're just extremely happy that we're still in the tournament!"
"We didn't know that we could go any further if we lost. We thought that if we lost 2-0, we'd be out," admitted Ronja Klinger after the match against the South Americans. "We're just extremely happy that we're still in the tournament," said her older sister Dorina. The two Austrians have the mode and the flawless Swiss pairing of Anouk Verge-Depre/Joana Mäder, who beat Lithuania's Monika Paulikiene/Aine Raupelyte 2:1 in the parallel match, to thank for that.

As a result, the Baltic women, the Brazilians and the ÖVV duo each have one win and two defeats. The points ratio of the direct encounters between these three teams ultimately tipped the scales in favor of Agatha/Rebecca in second place and the Klinger sisters in third. The latter had the better overall result by one point than Paulikiene/Raupelyte, whom they had defeated on Wednesday. This is the first time the local heroes have reached the intermediate round of an Elite 16 competition.

"We want to show our best performance again tomorrow!"
The Klingers got off to the worst possible start against the experienced Agatha/Rebecca and lost set 1 12:21. Even after that, the home number 1 women were constantly trailing. "They put us under so much pressure with their service. They played a bit of cat and mouse with us," said Dorina. "We want to show our best performance again tomorrow, unfortunately that wasn't the case today. I think we can play a class better."

Meanwhile, Hörl/Horst failed to get off to a good start in the men's tournament. The Olympic starters did not get off to a good start against Boermans/De Groot and were on the losing end in the first set. Austria's top duo kept the second set open, but gave away a four-point lead, while the Dutch world No. 4s were able to make the most of their opportunities in the final set. "We didn't take our chances," Horst said self-critically.