Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 13, 2016 – Nadine Zumkehr and Joana Heidrich booked their place in the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games quarterfinals with a 2-1 (19-21, 21-13, 15-10) win over the Netherlands’ Marlene van Iersel and Madelein Meppelink at the Copacabana Beach Arena on Saturday.
Here’s what they said after the match…
Nadine Zumkehr, Switzerland
“Brazilians really likes seeing people have fun on the court and we really had fun on the court today, maybe that is why they supported us in the end. Let’s see if they support us tomorrow (versus Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes, Brazil).
“It is going to be really tough, but an amazing game. They have pressure we don’t. We will try to destroy the Brazilian party.”
Joana Heidrich, Switzerland
“We started well, but then we hit a patch and weren’t so active in our attacking. We had to be more active and aggressive, but it wasn’t easy to come back into it. We knew it wasn’t a bad set, just the middle period, so we said we needed to sit back a bit and compete for every point and that helped us.”
Marlene van Iersel, the Netherlands
“It changed in the second set and we couldn’t put the ball away anymore. In the side-out and transition they were serving consistently and that was the big problem, we also couldn’t put the ball away with the chances we had in block defence.”
Madelein Meppelink, the Netherlands
“Awesome stadium, awesome crowd, awesome location.”