The outcome of the Round of 16 of the men’s tournament of the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships had serious implications not only in the event itself, but also in the race for qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

With two duels involving teams from the same country that are competing against each other for a spot at next year’s Games, the second stage of the elimination rounds, held on Thursday, limited the list of candidates to lift the trophy in Tlaxcala on Sunday to just eight duos.

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Traditionally one of the nations to have the toughest competition for Olympic spots due to the limit of two teams per country that can make it to the Games, Brazil featured in one of those duels, with Pedro Solberg/Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes and Evandro Gonçalves/Arthur Lanci battling in Huamantla.

Pedro, who’s making his eighth World Championship appearance this year, and Guto started behind and avoided a couple of match points on set two to win the all-Brazilian duel in the tie-breaker (15-21, 24-22, 15-11).

“I think the key for us today was staying humble,” Guto said. “We accepted things weren’t going our way on set one and used it to build our comeback. We had a good game plan coming into the match, but we needed some time to understand what our opponents were trying to do. That’s what we did in the first set and with the information we collected, we were able to implement our strategy and, at the end, to force them to do what we wanted them to.”

The two, who paired in April, with the Olympic qualification period already underway, increased their chances of making it to next year’s Games with their good performance in Mexico. With just seven results accounted for before the World Championships, Pedro and Guto ranked fourth among the Brazilian teams in the Provisional Olympic Rankings with 4,320 points, behind Andre Loyola/George Wanderley (7,480), Evandro/Arthur (6,580) and Vitor Felipe/Renato Lima (5,640), but will certainly gain ground on them after the Mexican event.

“There were a lot of factors involved in this match,” Pedro reflected. “These two teams know each other very well and we’re both fighting for an Olympic spot. We knew this match would be huge for us, especially with it being at the World Championships, where there are so many points in play. I’m very happy that again we managed to come back after losing the first set, which is not easy.”

In the quarterfinals, the Brazilians will face Americans Theo Brunner and Trevor Crabb, who topped Australians Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert in two sets (21-17, 21-17).

The Netherlands were the other nation to have an important chapter of their internal battle for a spot in Paris 2024 written on Thursday in Mexico with the duel between Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot and Matthew Immers/Steven van de Velde.

Boermans and de Groot, who have struggled with injuries during the season and have only 3,480 points in five finishes, will likely close the gap to Immers and van de Velde, who have 4,880 points and ten finishes, after their three-set (21-18, 16-21, 15-13) victory in Apizaco.

Two-time European champions David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden avoided another all-Dutch encounter in the quarterfinals by eliminating 2013 world champions Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen with a two-set (21-13, 21-11) victory and will now face Boermans and de Groot.

Beach Volleyball World Championships - Match Schedule and Results

Reigning Olympic and world champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway earned their fifth victory in Mexico, beating Italians Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) in the Round of 16 and will now play Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, who prevailed over Italians Daniele Lupo and Enrico Rossi in two sets (21-15, 21-17).

“The Italians are an excellent team and we lost recently to them in Hamburg so we knew how well they could play,” Sørum told Volleyball World. “It was a tough match and our focus was on taking one play at a time and staying sharp at all times. We were also very patient because we didn’t get a lot of points at the start. We kept our side out strong and got the points we needed at the end of both sets. We’re very happy to be in the quarterfinals with so many great teams here.”

The fourth and last quarterfinal encounter on Friday will reunite Poles Michal Bryl and Bartosz Łosiak, who eliminated Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler in two sets (21-18, 21-16), and Americans Miles Partain and Andy Benesh, who overcame Italians Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula in straight sets (21-14, 21-17).

“We’re just trying to play volleyball the way we want to play it and we’re getting better at every match,” Benesh commented. “It’s only the best teams in the world now, so we have to bring our ‘A’ game every time and fight for every point and we’ve done a good job with that so far. We’re looking forward to being back in front of the crowd in the quarterfinals and playing some good volleyball. We have so much respect for every team here, it’s really a dream coming true to share the court with them and compete with them.”

The men’s quarterfinals will start in Tlaxcala, at 16:00 local time (22:00 UTC) and will continue with matches in Tlaxcala at 18:00 local time (00:00 UTC, Saturday) and Apizaco at 19:00 local time (01:00 UTC, Saturday) before concluding with an encounter in Huamantla at 20:00 local time (00:20 UTC, Saturday).

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