Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 12, 2016 - After posting a pool upset Thursday over a Dutch pair, Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Konstantin Semenov cruised to an elimination win here Friday mid-day in men’s competition at the Rio 2016 Olympics to guarantee Russia its best beach volleyball placement in the “Summer” Games.
With their 2-0 (21-13, 21-13) win in 32 minutes over Jefferson Santos Pereira and Cherif Younousse of Qatar, Krasilnikov and Semenov become the first Russian men’s or women’s beach volleyball to advance to the quarter-finals in Olympic competition. The previous bests were ninths at the Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics.
Semenov was part of the 2012 ninth-place finishers in London with Serguey Prokopyev. The pair won one of three pool matches in the 2012 Olympics and were eliminated in the Round of 16 by Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal of the United States.
Friday’s win was also the third international victory for the Russians over Jefferson and Cherif in as many tries as the two teams also played each other on Copacabana last March with Krasilnikov and Semenov posting a 2-0 (21-14, 21-17) pool play win in the Rio Grand Slam.
The Russians, who upset Reinder Nummerdor and Christiaan Varenhorst of the Netherlands Thursday to win Pool E with a 3-0 record, will play the winners of the Friday afternoon match between Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst of Austria and Nivaldo Diaz/Sergio Gonzalez of Cuba.
