Spain’s Baquerizo/Fernandez hoping to keep good things going at FIVB Cincinnati Open

Mason, Ohio, USA, May 18, 2016 – Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez were just as excited as the rest of the world when the 2016 FIVB World Tour got underway in Brazil in February.They just happened to forget to set their alarm clock.In a year in which the Rio 2016 Olympic Games loomed on the horizon, players trained harder than ever before in preparation for the qualifying run. Baquerizo and Fernandez found out the hard way that this cycle of qualifying would be a little different than the one that sent them to the London 2012 Games.They arrived in Brazil for the Maceio Open and were bounced out after losing three times in four matches. They hit the Rio Grand Slam and went 0-for-3, then traveled back north to the Vitoria Open and again went 0-3. For a team that was in the thick of the hunt for Olympic qualification, they began to wonder what the heck was going on.“We were kind of worried in Brazil,” Fernandez said. “Everybody was saying, ‘What’s up, what’s up?’ ”Deep down, they knew.“We normally don’t start that soon, so we kind of in the middle of our preseason,” Baquerizo said. “We also think Brazil was good to …

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