Toronto, Canada, September 16, 2016 - After dropping two matches Wednesday and Thursday in pool play, Australians Louise Bawden and Taliqua Clancy regained their winning ways by defeating Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez of Spain 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) in a 35-minute elimination match.
It was only the Australians' third win in nine FIVB World Tour matches with Elsa and Liliana.
With the win at the SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals here Friday on Polson Pier, Bawden and Clancy will now play Joana Heidrich and Nadine Zumkehr of Switzerland in the quarter-finals. The Friday afternoon "elite eight" matches will set the field for Saturday's semi-finals.
Taliqua Clancy - “Lili and Elsa are an experienced team and they’ve been on the Tour a lot longer that I have. We respect them a lot and we know how great they are, so we know we have to bring our best when we play them. They are pretty similar to us, very physical so it’s a hustling game and it’s a big game. Today we just made very sure that we were calm and patient, sticking together as a team. Today we brought better service pressure, and you need that on the World Tour.”
Liliana Fernandez - “We needed more energy today. It’s been a long season for us and we needed to push more. We didn’t play great, but they played very well. With these teams you have to do your best or they will beat you. We started the season very bad in Brazil, so we had to make adjustments. We worked hard and we got the silver in Soichi and the bronze in Cincinnati and the silver in Long Beach. We wanted to go further in the Olympics, but we played three good pool games.”