Rio de Janeiro, August 11, 2016 – Italy’s Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai booked their place in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games round of 16 with a 2-1 (21-12, 15-21, 15-13) victory over Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Piotr Kantor in the lucky loser round at Copacabana Beach Arena on Thursday.
The win sets up a round of 16 clash against fellow Italians Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula.
Here’s what they said after the match…
Paolo Nicolai, Italy
“Today we played two finals - one probably more exciting, the other one against a team (the Polish) that this year has achieved incredible results. But we want to fight, we are here and we know this is the Olympics and all the teams are strong, and the next one will be like another final, too.
“We (the two Italian teams) are different teams and we are friends, but that is off the court. All four of us are going to give our all and of course it will be nicer that an Italian team will proceed to the quarterfinals, but we are all professionals and are here to compete.”