French youngsters Canet and Rotar steal the show in Montpellier

After Wednesday’s qualification round, the competition at the FIVB 1* World Tour event in Montpellier continued on Thursday with the start of the Main Draw. The schedule in each pool is simple: one match per team followed by another one on Friday, where a spot in the quarterfinals will be at stake. Teams securing two straight wins will move on straight to the quarterfinals. Those with one win and one loss in the pool will contest the playoff round, and those with two losses will unfortunately have to pack their stuff and travel home.

Two Canadian teams have crossed the Atlantic to play in this tournament. William Hoey, the tallest player of the competition (209 cm), is one of them and he plays together with Jake MacNeil. The Canadians eventually lost in three sets to Austrian qualifiers Maximilian Trummer and Felix Friedl (21-19, 13-21, 9-15). On Friday, the Austrians will play home heroes Quincy Ayé/Arnaud Gauthier-Rat for top spot in Pool A, after the local favourites needed two sets (22-20, 21-13) to beat Swiss qualifiers Simon Hagenbuch and Leo Dillier. Ayé and Gauthier-Rat won silver last year in Montpellier and they reach out for the podium again.

In Pool B, Ardis Bedritis/Arturs Rinkevics of Latvia needed two sets only to beat Spain’s Javier Huerta Pastor and Oscar Jimenez Gutierrez. Serbia’s Djordje Klasnic and Lazar Kolaric were just as dominant in a matchup with a young French team consisting of Olivier Barthélémy and Liam Patte (21-17, 21-15) – who had recently competed at the 2* event in Prague. The Frenchmen will try to stay in the competition when they play the Spanish qualifiers on Friday.

Rising Portuguese stars Joao Pedrosa/Hugo Campos, silver medal winners in Cortegaça earlier this month, claimed an Iberian derby with Javier Monfort Minaya/Pablo Perez Suarez of Spain. French teams suffered another setback as Arnaud Loiseau/Tom Altwies lost 22-24, 16-21 to Austria’s Mathias Seiser and Moritz Kindl after wasting five set balls in the first set. Loiseau and Altwies achieved success earlier this summer in Leuven, Belgium, where they finished second only to home heroes Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle.

The wind in Montpellier calmed down a bit for the Pool D matches. The second Canadian team had arrived a few days ago already and they looked ready to fight. However, Simon Fecteau-Boutin/Ivan Reka eventually lost in three sets to Nils Gunnar Ringøen/Svein Oddmund Solhaug of Norway in the longest match of the day (75 minutes). At the end of a long day, young Frenchmen Artur Canet/Téo Rotar, winners of the French Cup only four days ago, beat the experienced Czechs Jan Dumek/Matyas Dzavoronok in two quick sets (21-17, 21-10) much to the delight of the local crowd.