Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 10, 2016 - Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of The Netherlands completed the first phase of the men’s Beach Volleyball competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with a perfect record in Pool B as the 2013 FIVB world champions posted a two-set win over a Polish pair here Wednesday afternoon.
With their 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) win in 43 minutes over Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak of Poland, the Dutch assume the No. 2 seeded spot in the 16-team elimination bracket and will play one of the final two qualifiers via the “lucky losers” playoff late Thursday.
In posting their third-straight win in four matches with the Poles, Brouwer and Meeuwsen never trailed in the match as the Dutch jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first set and 5-1 in the second. Kantor and Losiak made it close at the end of each set as the Poles fought off two match points in each set.
Kantor and Losiak are now 1-2 in the competition and have to wait for the last Pool B match to be play to learn their elimination positioning. Winless Markus Bockermann and Lars Fluggen Germany need to defeat Dmitri Barsouk and Nikita Liamin of Russia to force a three-way tie in the group. A Russian win would eliminated the Germans from the competition.
