SAQUAREMA, Brazil — There’s a lot that may look the identical this week on the Seashore Professional Tour. This weekend’s Saquarema Problem, which begins with Thursday’s qualifier, is held not removed from final week’s in Recife — a few-hour flight to Rio de Janeiro, a two-hour drive to the sleepy surf-town that’s Saquarema. The language is similar, the faces the identical, the meals the identical scrumptious dose of acai and picanha.
The sphere, too, is generally the identical.
Key phrase: Principally.
Absent from this weekend’s Saquarema Problem is Arthur Mariano and Evandro Goncalves, winners of final week’s Recife Problem, house owners of some of the dominant particular person performances in current reminiscence. The sphere won’t should cope with the 37 aces pumped in from Evandro final weekend, nor the 60-plus-percent aspect out from Arthur. The Brazilians collected their gold medal, stashed away their 800 factors, and although they’re the defending champions right here in Saquarema, they’ve opted to take the week off.
The identical line of considering appears to have utilized to Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova. They, too, collected their gold medal in Recife. They, too, stashed away 800 factors. They, too, have opted to take the week off.
Saquarema, then, is open.
Or so it could actually appear.
Medalists again in qualifier for Saquarema Problem
Each of the silver medalists made the journey from Recife to Saquarema. Cubans Noslen Diaz and Jorge Alayo are the highest seed for the primary time of their partnership. Sophie Bukovec and Heather Bansley are additionally the highest seed… within the qualifier.
The entry factors earned final week in Recife haven’t but taken maintain for the Canadians, who danced their manner from the qualifier to the gold medal match in Recife. In order that they’re again to the place they started, within the qualifier the place they’ll meet Savvy Simo and Toni Rodriguez within the first spherical, and certain New Zealand’s Alice Zeimann and Shaunna Polley within the second ought to they win. Brooke Sweat and Kennedy Coakley match up with Puerto Rico’s Allanis Navas and Maria Gonzalez.
Bukovec and Bansley can discover empathy from Lithuania’s Monika Paulikiene and Aine Raupelyte. They, too, received a medal in Recife, a bronze. It was the primary Problem or Elite16 medal of their partnership. Their reward? Heading proper again into the qualifier in Saquarema.
Nasty affairs, these qualifiers.
The ladies’s aspect has been made so due to the addition of China’s Xinyi Xia and Chen Xue, Germany’s Laura Ludwig and Louise Lippmann, and Canada’s Sarah Pavan and Molly McBain. The one group on the lads’s finish who flew in only for Saquarema is Australia’s Zach Schubert and Thomas Hodges, bruisers who will greater than atone for Evandro and Arthur’s absence. The place the American males’s groups begin is unaffected by the introduction of the Aussies.
As they did final week in Recife, Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk open up qualifier play with the Czech Republic’s David Westphal and Tadeas Trousil, whom they beat 21-11, 21-16 in Recife. Logan Webber and Hagen Smith will meet eleventh-seeded Austrians Phillipp Waller and Martin Ermacora. Starting in the primary draw are Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, and Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, who completed ninth and fourth, respectively, in Recife.
That fourth introduced Budinger and Evans to inside 340 factors of Brunner and Crabb within the Olympic race. Such a margin will be erased in a single match, not to mention when accounting for the eight remaining within the Olympic qualifying interval.