The ITF Beach Tennis World Team Championship is coming to the end on the courts of the National Tennis Center named after Juan Antonio Samaranch. In the match for the bronze the Russan team has outplayed the German tem with ease. In the semifinals the opponents of the Germany were the Brazilans.
Ekaterna Kirigizova and Daria Churakova who replaced Gulnara Fattakhetdinova were the first to step on the court. Dorothee Berreth and Carina Blank represented the German team.
'Our aim was to surprise our opponents', said the Vice-President of the Russian Tennis Federation Dmitriy Vikharev. 'That is why we replaced Gulnara for Daria Churakova. She showed a high level of game. The German duo is playing very well. They are perfectly coordinated. So we had to do something unexpected. This tactics proved right. Our girls won. Our Russian duo easily won the first set 6/2 and could manage to win a difficult second set 7/5.
Sergey Kuptsov/Nikita Burmakin defeated the German duo Alexander Bayer/Oliver Munz 6/3, 6/3. Russia is now the bronze winner of the Championship two years in a row.
'Our goal is to get into the elite of beach tennis. Now we are closer to the best teams of the world. But we have a lot of work ahead. This years we played against the strongest team from Italy and showed a very well level of game. We have made a lot of progress this season. Now we can not say that there is a huge gap between Italy, Brazil and our team', said Kuptsov.