The men’s quarter-finals emphasised the dominance of Croatia, Brazil and Qatar in beach handball. Hungary are ready to fight their success of the 2009 World Games, where they ranked second.

 

 

Hungary vs Uruguay 2:0 (32:20, 28:12)

Uruguay, who ranked 10th at last year’s World Championship in Budapest, Hungary suffered a defeat against the Hungarians who ranked 4th.

 

Patrik Vizes from Hungary admitted, that they were expecting the game to be harder: “But fortunately, it wasn’t a hard one. For the upcoming matches, we’re waiting for our next opponent who will be the winner of the Poland vs Brazil match. We have already beaten Poland in preliminary so if we’ll play against them, they will put more pressure at us. And if we’ll play with Brazilians, it will be really hard as they won the last World Games and here they play almost in the same squad as in Cali in 2013.”

 

Australia vs Croatia 0:2 (14:20, 13:16)

The 2016 world champions and bronze medallists of the 2017 European Championship confirmed their place at the top as they beat Australia 2:0 and booked their semi-final ticket.

 

“We have lost a set against Australia last World Championships in 2016, so today we were really focusing on not letting that happen again.  Now we are ready for the upcoming matches,” said Croatia’s Ivan Juric.

 

Poland vs Brazil 0:2 (14:18, 22:28)

The hosts turned out to be a tough opponent for Brazil, the favourites of the tournament, but eventually Brazil won the first period by 4 points, the second by 6.

 

“It is always hard to play against the home team. But although the audience wasn’t cheering for us, I really enjoyed the atmosphere. And that is what the beach handball is about – it is spectacular and it is for the people. Poland played a very good game,” commented Bruno Oliveira and gave his thoughts about the upcoming match against Hungary: “We have lost against them in 2016 World Championships. So we need to really focus on the game today.”

 

Qatar vs Egypt 2:0 (23:7, 23:10)

Qatar continue their winning streak beating Egypt by 16 points in the first period and 13 in the second one.

 

“We have expected to win. Egypt is still young, it is a new generation, they are unexperienced,” said Qatar’s Mohsin Yafai and also gave his opinion about the upcoming match against Croatia: “Croatia is not what they used to be. They have already lost in the European Championships and I’m sure we’ll beat them.”

 

In the semi-finals, Croatia will face Qatar and Brazil will play against Hungary.