It was the match everyone was expecting to be the one that would decide the winner of Pool H. Clemens Doppler and Alex Horst of Austria against Clemens Wickler of Julius Thole of Germany.
Instead, for both teams, the match later this evening on the Red Bull Beach Arena will decide which team remains in the tournament and which will go home early after both duos lost their first matches at the A1 Major Vienna presented by Swatch.
It will be a battle against teams that won the silver medal at the last two World Championships. The 2017 runners-up Alex and Clemens go into the match having squandered a first set advantage to lose to Swiss pair Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson in front of a packed Red Bull Beach Arena crowd.
It was the team from Switzerland’s fourth successive victory over their Austrian opponents.
“We have a good record against them but I don’t know why!” said a happy Heidrich after the 2-1 win. “It is very hard to play against them normally, but especially here in Vienna with the massive crowd, we knew it was going to be really, really difficult.
“But we pushed through and now with a win under our belts it makes the next game easier for us to deal with mentally.”
For Doppler/Horst they now face the 2019 World Championship runners-up Thole/Wickler in what promises to be a tense match on the main arena.
The Germans went down in their pool opener to compatriots Nils Ehlers and Lars Flüggen, the qualifiers who won silver in Tokyo last week.
Nils and Lars got the job done in straight sets, completely the victory with a 29-27 second set success.
The deciding pool match will take place on the Red Bull Beach Arena at 6.45pm CEST. And you will not want to miss it!
