Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 14, 2016 – Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas progressed to the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games beach volleyball semifinals when they defeated Russia’s Ekaterina Birlova and Evgenia Ukolova 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) at the Copacabana Beach Arena on Sunday.
Here’s what they said after the match….
Barbara Seixas, Brazil
“I can’t describe how I feel. I think I was very grateful as it was all we could think about in the first set. I knew I had some difficulties then and my partner helped me a lot. All the time we were saying to each other ‘we will make it, we will make it through this, let’s believe in it and let’s go, one more point, one more point’. That was crucial for us.
“We didn’t give up the set despite being 19-13 behind, I think that gave us more confidence for the second set and I think the Russians felt that a little bit and we opened up a lead of four or five points.
“We were really focused and just said, ‘one more point, one more point’, and just said that right to the end.”
Evgenia Ukolova, Russia
“We started not good, but we had a couple of goods serves and caused them some problems. Then they pushed hard with their serve and we didn’t pass off the serve well and that affected our side-out.
“The strongest part of this team is their serve and they created many problems for us with their serve.”
Quick links - FIVB in Rio: