Vita hoping home crowd will help her to defend Sand Series title
Home favourites and defending champions Vitoria Marchezini and Marcela Vita were dealt a tricky draw for the second edition of the Sand Series Brasilia Classic last night, landing in the same half as the standout team of the season, Giulia Gasparri and Ninny Valentini.
The Italian pair enter the tournament on a 20-match win streak including the last two Sand Series events in Gran Canaria and Barcelona. The Brazilian duo will also have to navigate past Joana Cortez and Veronica Visani in a possible quarter-final matchup, who are in good form and very narrowly lost to Patricia Diaz and Rafaella Miiller in a match tie break last week in Uberlandia.
On her return to Brasilia, Vita said: “We are looking forward to being in action with the support of the people here in Brazil, where we feel welcomed. We are gonna leave everything on the court for sure.”
In the bottom half of the draw, last week’s runners up in Uberlandia, Miiller and Diaz, will look to go one further in Brasilia, though they will have to navigate past Sofia Cimatti and Nicole Nobile who recently triumphed in Valinhos.
They will take confidence after coming out on top against the Italian duo in one of the matches of the season in the semi-finals of the Sand Series Réunion Classic, saving multiple match points in the process before a 17-15 match tie break win and then going on to clinch the title against Gasparri and Valentini in the final in similar fashion.
Meanwhile on the men’s side, Mattia Spoto and Nicolas Gianotti will face a stern test if they are to successfully defend their title.
Standing in their way of the final are two teams rounding into form in recently assembled duo Nikita Burmakin and Andre Baran, who triumphed in Valinhos before a runners up finish in Uberlandia last week, as well as home favourites Allan Oliveira and Thales Santos.
The Brazilian duo reached back-to-back finals at the Sand Series Barcelona as well as the BT400 Valinhos where they lost to Burmakin and Baran. They will look to exact revenge this week in a possible quarter-final match up on Friday.
On the draw, Oliveira said: “We have difficult rounds until the final and we will go in giving our maximum from the first point.
He added that it was difficult to know who was favourite for the title given the four different sets of champions produced in the last month.
The other side of the draw sees top seeds and recent Sand Series Barcelona winners Antomi Ramos and Michele Cappelletti looking to carry on their recent form having taken the title last week at the BT400 Uberlandia.
Vini Font and Marco Garavini will look to go one better than last week to meet them in the semi-finals, having lost a thrilling match to Gianotti and Spoto in last week’s quarter-finals in Uberlandia.
Cappelletti and Ramos will be wary though of world champion Tommaso Giovannini and Theo Irigaray, who will look to put their opening round loss last week behind them.