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Spain’s Elsa & Liliana improve Olympic profile
- Updated: May 9, 2016
Lausanne, May 9, 2016 – After placing 17th, 25th, 25th and ninth in their first four events this season, Spaniards Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez were floundering with only four wins in their first 15 matches.
However, that all changed in Russia this weekend at the Sochi Open as the pair won six of seven matches to improve their provisional ranking for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where Elsa and Liliana moved into the No. 11 spot (4,430 points for their best 12 finishes), excluding Brazilians, and ahead of Americans Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweet (4,410).
NOT THE SAME
Elsa and Liliana, who were the first Spanish women’s team to qualify for the Beach Volleyball competition in the Olympics at the London 2012 Summer Games, were not the same team at the start of the 2015-2016 international campaign that they were the past two seasons when they finished ninth and 11th, respectively, on the FIVB World Tour.
“We really struggled to find our game during our trip to Brazil,” said Liliana as the Spaniards won only once in 10 matches in the late February through mid-March stops in Maceio, Rio and Vitoria on the South American continent. “We started playing better two weeks ago in China at Fuzhou, but we still did not defeat any of the top teams.”
The Spaniards only victory in Brazil was a three-set (2-1, 23-21, 19-21, 15-11), 61-minute pool play win over Fendrick and Sweat to advance from the pool in Maceio with the Americans placing 25th. Although Elsa and Liliana lost their next match in Maceio to Ana Gallay and Georgina Klug of Argentina, the Spanish elimination of the Americans prevented Fendrick and Sweat with an opportunity to improve their Olympic ranking point total.
FAILURE THEN SUCCESS
Entering this week with an 1-4 match mark this season against the top pairs on the FIVB World Tour, Elsa and Liliana improved their record three-straight wins over quality opposition, including two victories over German pairs (Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude and Karla Borger/Britta Buthe) followed a semi-final victory over Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth of Italy. The Italians are the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour point leaders for women.
The string of Sochi successes for the Spaniards ended when Switzerland’s Joana Heidrich and Nadine …
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