Lankan Beach Volleyballers lose in the quarter-finals

Bernard Perera in Lisbon, Portugal

Sri Lanka men’s and women’s Beach Volleyball teams bowed out of the Lusofonia Games competition when they were beaten in the quarter finals yesterday.

First it was the men’s team Wasantha Ratnapala and Mahesh Perera who got out beaten by Brazil two sets to one. Brazil the world’s number one ranked team is the hot favourite to take the title here followed by the host country Portugal.

Sri Lankan players performance here was highly commendable looking at the conditions they had to face during the match. Firstly it was weather which changed during the last two days with heavy winds along with coldness caused the players immense damage. The Lankan players who are facing this type of weather for the first time on European soil could not bear it.

The match began with Brazil finding things easy for them and got off to a good start to have a 4 point lead within five minutes. Lankan pair was not able to counter the spiking of these two Brazilians and went down in this set with the score showing 21-14.

The second set was won by the Brazilians but the Lankan men posed a threat at early stage collecting few points and not allowing their opponents to gain a big lead, But going in to the half way mark Brazilians took things seriously and finished the set at 21-13 to see them through to the semi finals.

Thakshila Gunesinghe and Sujeeva Wijesinghe had to face the most difficult times during this tournament playing late in the night 10.45 p.m.

Portugal time (3.30 a.m. SL time). This became a big handicap for them as they had to play Beach Volleybal in a different style using long sleeves and pants to wade off the heavy cold really took the days proceedings and its beauty from all present on the beach.

Portugal the host country who are used to these climatic conditions got the better of the Lankan women to win and advance to the semi finals.

Portugal went on to score freely and got off to a winning lead quite early and moved smoothly to end the set at 21-12. Lankan women picked up points at regular intervals but could not reduce the gap as Portugese women’s lead was too much.

The second set saw the Lankans find things more difficult with the cold weather and succumbed tamely to lose the set at 21-08 and the match 2-0.

This victory also helped Portugal enter the semi finals along with Brazil the hot favourites here to win the gold medal.

The second match played in the evening against the toughest team of the competition Brazil also ended with the favourites winning in a comfortable manner 2-0 (21-12, 21-15). Though the Brazilians were favourites the Lankan women at times gave tough opposition to the Brazilians getting closer to their total on a few occasions.

This happened specially in the second set with Thakshila and Sujeeva trying hard with good spiking.

The semi finals are scheduled to be played in the morning and the finals this evening at the beautiful Santa Amaro Beach front.