Herrera aiming for another Olympic-sized result

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 12, 2016 - Pablo Herrera will be aiming for another huge result when he and Adrian Gavira take on number one seeds and reigning world champions Alison Cerutti at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games round of 16 on Saturday.

Twelve years ago Herrera and then partner Javier Bosma were the surprise silver medallists at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and he subsequently played at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012, the former with Raul Mesa and the latter with Gavira.

This year he and Gavira have won one gold and one bronze on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, but they will need to raise their game another level, especially as Brazil’s Alison and Bruno will be roared on by the centre court crowd. 

Pedro Salgado and Evandro Goncalves will be hoping that they have truly found their best form for the elimination rounds. 

After they lost their opening two matches the Brazilian beat Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins to finish second in their pool and go straight to the elimination rounds. 

Now they must face Russia’s Nikita Liamin and Dmitri Barsuk, who also finished with a better pool record of won two, lost one. 

Two teams that won their pools with unbeaten records face teams that finished in third place. 

USA’s Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena will take on Austria’s Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl, who qualified directly for the round of 16 as one of the best third-placed teams. 

Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who won the 2013 world title, will now face Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk after the Canadians won through the lucky loser round.