Russian women roll to Beach quarter-finals

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 12, 2016 – With Ekaterina Birlova and Evgeniya Ukolova playing their third match in a 27 hour period, Spain’s Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez appeared to have the advantage heading into their “Sweet 16” match here Friday evening with the Russians in the Beach Volleyball competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Playing instead of resting served the Russians better as Birlova and Ukolova posted a 2-0 (23-21, 24-22) win in 50 minutes over Elsa and Liliana to advance to the quarter-finals to meet reigning FIVB world champions Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas of Brazil.  Playing in the first of eight matches Friday, Agatha and Barbara posted a 2-0 (21-12, 21-16) win in 42 minutes to eliminate Fan Wang and Yuan Yue of China.

With both teams appearing in their second-straight Olympics after both placed ninth at the London 2012 Summer Games, Birlova and Ukolova tied the series with the Spaniards at 2-2.  Friday’s match was the first meeting in the series since late May 2015 when Elsa and Liliana defeated the Russians in the Moscow Grand Slam.

Coupled with a 2-0 (21-13, 21-13) win in 32 minutes earlier in the day by Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Konstantin Semenov over Jefferson Santos Pereira and Cherif Younousse of Qatar, Russia is now guaranteed a fifth-place in both …

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