Plavins/Tocs, Ranghieri/Caminati, Semenov/Leshukov cruise to easy pool play wins at Kish Island

Kish Island, Iran, February 21, 2018 – Latvia’s Martins Plavins/Edgars Tocs, Italy’s Alex Ranghieri/Marco Caminati and Russia’s Konstantin Semenov/Ilya Leshukov each cruised to two straight-set victories in pool play of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour MICA Mall Kish Island 3-star at the Kish Marine Recreation Sports Complex on Wednesday.

Plavins/Tocs opened their Kish Island campaign with impressive performances against Iran’s Aghamohammad Salagh/Abolhamed Mirzaali 2-0 (21-11, 21-19) and Norway’s Mathias Berntsen/Hendrik Nikolai Mol 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) to lead in Pool A.

Ranghieri/Caminati likewise shared great chemistry on court, which resulted in victories over Sweden’s Martin Appelgren/Simon Boman 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) and France’s Maxime Thiercy/Arnaud Gauthier-Rat 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) in Pool F.

Russia’s Semenov/Leshukov are really making their presence felt with another pair of victories against USA’s Stafford Slick/Casey Patterson 2-0 (21-13, 21-12) and Austria’s Cristophe Dessler/Robin Seidl 2-0 (23-21, 21-19) in Pool H, following their two victories in the qualification round on Tuesday.

Another Italian pair topped their pool, as Tiziano Andreatta/Andrea Abbiati earned double three-set victories over Iran’s Rahman Raoufi/Bahman Semaiinjehboroun and Latvia’s Haralds Regza/Kristaps Smits in Pool A.

Poland’s Mariusz Prudel/Jakub Szalankiewicz aced their first match with a straight-set win, and managed to overcome a hurdle in their next match with a three-set triumph in Pool D. Austria’s Julian Horl/Tobias Winter and Indonesia’s Ade Rachmawan/Mohammad Afshiya experienced the same pattern, but nevertheless succeeded in both matches setting up the respective leaderships in Pool C and Pool E.

For Lithuania’s Arnas Rumsevicius/Lukas Kazdailis, their campaign started with a 2-1 win followed by a much easier 2-0 victory to sit on top of Pool G.