Alison Cerutti and Álvaro Filho couldn’t leave the A1 Vienna Major presented by Swatch with the elusive gold medals around their necks but that doesn’t mean their campaigns at the Danube Island didn’t taste like victory to them.
After all, when they joined forces at the end of March it seemed like a desperate attempt to qualify to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, especially for Alison, who had just ended an unsuccessful partnership with André Loyola. Four months later, things look very different to the Brazilians, who won their first Beach Major Series medal together in the Austrian capital.
“This is another step forward for us,” Alison said after the awarding ceremony. “We did well in three and four star events and now to play in a final of a Major, it’s part of the process too. I’m very happy about the way we’re progressing and to be in the semi-finals and finals, it just makes us improve faster. There’s still one year until the Olympics and it should be enough time for us to get to the point we want, especially because I’m sure we’re headed in the right direction.”
The silver in Gstaad ended a very successful stretch of tournaments for the Brazilians, who topped the podium in Espinho, finished fourth in Tokyo and had top-ten finishes at both the Gstaad Major and the World Championships in Hamburg.
“I couldn’t be any happier,” Álvaro remarked. “To get a silver medal in the last tournament of a tough six-week road trip, it’s fantastic. It’s clear that we’re getting better each weeks and it was our third semi-final in a row, which is so hard to do. We’re still a new team and we want to keep moving forward one step at a time.”
In the Vienna Major final, the Brazilians got to play Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sørum for the first time since they became partners and, even though the result didn’t go their way, they had positive takeaways from the match.
“They’ve been the best team in the world for the last year and it was important for us to play them,” Alison added. “The last time I had played them was one year ago and it’s impressive how much better they’ve got. They’re young, but very calm and they know when to change their strategy, which is not usual for players of their age. I feel like we didn’t play as well as we could in the final, but it was a big opportunity for us to learn and improve. And the atmosphere was amazing, our sport really needs more tournaments like this.”
