Home teams fail to reach World Tour 2-Star Main Draw in Prague

A stop of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour has returned to Prague for the first time in six years, with a 2-Star event starting Thursday at Beachklub Ládví, the biggest Beach Volleyball facility in the Czech Republic.

Three Czech pairs joined the qualification round, but none eventually made it to the Main Draw. Robert Kufa and Adam Waber were close to achieving this goal but they lost at the tiebreak after putting up a real fight. Daniel Fabikovič/Richard Struška and Michaela Břínková/Anna Širůčková, who were making their World Tour debut, did not progress either. Therefore, eight home teams – all already seeded in there – will contest the Main Draw of the 2-Star event in Prague.

Even though the local stars will take to the court only on Friday, the Czech fans managed to create a great atmosphere already in the qualification round. Even the gloomy and windy weather did not prevent a large number of spectators from coming together. The Czech pairs rewarded them with at least a few good rallies, but unfortunately none of them managed to win their matches.

Anna Širůčková and Michaela Břínková were the first to make their World Tour debut. While the latter had previous experience on the international scene at least from youth tournaments, for Anna it was a truly new experience. Their opponents were Brazil’s Elize Maia and her young teammate Thamela. Elize Maia, among others, won bronze at the last World Tour tournament held in Prague in 2015 at Štvanice, which she contested with one of the biggest stars of contemporary women’s Beach Volleyball, Eduarda Duda Lisboa. The Czech players fought fiercely in the match, but they made several unforced errors and quickly bid farewell to the tournament after losing 13-21, 13-21.

Robert Kufa and Adam Waber were the first of the Czech men’s teams to enter the tournament, as they literally managed to do so at the last minute. Due to several pairs that did not arrive in Prague, they played the qualification despite being only the 8^th ranked pair in the reserve list! Poland’s Jedrzej Brozyniak/Piotr Janiak were the opponents, with whom the Czechs coincidentally had a fresh experience from last week, as they lost to the same opponents at the tiebreak in a national event. The third set spilled over from one side to the other, which Kufa said had a clear reason: “I felt like the match was nervous from both sides. Both teams wanted to win. It was nice Volleyball, but there were too many errors for my taste.” In the end, the Czech team was on the losing side with a score of 13-15.

The last Czech pair, who tried to fight their way into the Main Draw through a difficult qualification, was the young tandem consisting of Daniel Fabikovič and Richard Struška. For the Czech teenagers this was their first ever experience with international Beach Volleyball, and it was also only their tenth tournament in the senior category! Nevertheless, they played a very even match with their opponents Kristoffer Abell and Jacob Brinck, where the more experienced Danes broke away only towards the end of each set. “We did not perform well when it comes to our reception and setting,” Struška remarked.

Even though they lost in two sets, for Struška and Fabikovič, their participation in the Prague event was more of a preparation for the upcoming U18 European Championships. “It was a great experience for us, we had a great crowd behind us, it was great,” said Fabikovič after the game.

It was not only the matches that entertained the spectators in the venue. The kids enjoyed a rich accompanying programme in the fan zone including beach handball training with the Czech national beach handball team, judo with Jaromír Ježek, a Czech judo star, beach soccer training with the local team SK Ďáblice or parkour training with one of the biggest parkour teams - GPFC Parkour Praha.

Brazilians Elize Maia and Thamela and Danes Abell and Brick were among the winners of the qualification round. Familiar faces among the qualifiers were Germany’s Lukas Pfretzschner and Robin Sowa, who five years ago claimed U18 European gold in Brno. Surprisingly, the Spanish Cesar Menendez/Alejandro Huerta, whom the Czech fans could see at this year’s J&T Banka Ostrava Beach Open, where they lost to Ondrej Perušič and David Schweiner in the first match, had to accept a setback in their matchup with Lithuanian pair Artur Vasiljev/Robert Juchnevič.

On Friday, the Main Draw starts with as many as eight Czech teams, led by the silver medallists from the 4-Star event held in Ostrava earlier this year, Ondrej Perušič/David Schweiner, and Barbora Hermannová competing along with Daniela Resová. The experienced pairs Michala Kvapilová/Michaela Kubíčková or Marie-Sara Štochlová/Martina Williams will be in action as well, but there will also be a few first-timers. Anna Pospíšilová and Michaela Kulhánková, Kryštof Oliva and Matyáš Džavoronok or Lukáš Kittel/František Knobloch will make their World Tour debuts on Friday. The remaining players are Tomáš Semerád and Jakub Šépka, who can also put on a show, as they did in the qualification for the J&T Banka Ostrava Beach Open 2021.