The Hague, The Netherlands, July 20, 2014 - Legendary Beach Volleyball Emanuel Rego has added a new country to his list where he has won international medals as the 41-year old Brazilian teamed with his “new” partner Pedro Salgado to capture the men’s bronze medal here Sunday at the US$1-million Transavia Grand Slam presented by Bas Van de Goor Foundation.
In a meeting of former partners, the eighth-seeded Emanuel and Salgado posted a 2-1 (12-21, 21-16, 15-11) win in 51 minutes over third-seeded Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt at The Hague Beach Stadium on Scheveningen beach. With the victory, Emanuel and Salgado shared the $40,000 third-place prize while their compatriots split $30,000.
With the third-place finish, Emanuel has now claimed 154 international podium placements with Sunday’s bronze in The Netherlands being country No. 27 for the Brazilian. Since starting to play on the FIVB World Tour in 1994, Emanuel has collected a record 77 gold, 36 silver and 41 bronze medals in 242 events.
Sunday’s bronze medal match also featured the gold medal players from last year’s The Hague event as Salgado teamed with Bruno to win the Scheveningen beach title. Emanuel and Cerutti, the silver medal winners at the London 2012 Olympic Games and 2011 FIVB World champions, placed fifth in The Hague last season.
“We found a really good opponent (Alison) at the net in the first set,” said Emanuel, who has been playing Beach Volleyball since 1991 when he started on the Brazilian domestic tour. “They had almost eight or nine blocks. In the second set, Pedro helped me a lot. I asked him, let us change the settings. And he changes it very well, and that gave me the opportunity to change mine as well. The second and third set were more mental. Pedro did the magic when he made a beautiful smash in the second set at 19-15. That was a turning point. “It’s nice to play against Alison, he blocked all my balls in the first set, until I changed my play.”
The Transavia Grand Slam concludes Sunday with the men’s gold medal match between sixth-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel and top-seeded Americans Phil Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal where the winning team shares the $70,000 first-place prize.
Earlier Sunday, Brazilians Fernanda Alves and Taiana Lima defeated Katrin Holtwick and Ilka Semmler of Germany 2-1 to win the women’s Transavia Grand Slam title.
Following this week’s event, the FIVB World Tour returns to the United States for the second-straight year as Long Beach in southern California hosts another $1-million event. The international circuit returns to Europe in August for stops in Austria (Klagenfurt, July 29-August 3) and Poland (Stare Jablonki, August 19-24).