Volleyballers Fired Up for Final Four Faceoff

Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy have Australia back in the Olympic beach volleyball semi-finals for the first time since Athens 2004, taking on Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka of Latvia on Thursday 5 August at 11am AEST.

The Australians progressed to the semis by knocking out Canadian World Champions Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes in a scintillating quarter-final victory. Their Latvian opponents have been in great form, beating the tournament’s fourth seeded Brazilians Ana Patricia and Rebecca in the pool stage and dispatching the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) duo of Makroguzova and Kholomina in the round of 16 – with the ROC team the only ones to have defeated Clancy and Artacho del Solar this tournament in their Pool stage matchup. They progressed to the semi-finals after beating Canada’s Bansley and Brandie in the quarters 2-1.

The Latvians also bettered the Australians when they met less than a month ago in Gstaad Switzerland, in a tough 21-17, 17-21, 15-12 victory in the last World Tour event before the Tokyo Games. Artacho del Solar was excited to compete on the biggest stage of her career. 
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