Argentina’s beach volleyball team — Mariano Baracetti and Martin Conde — beat South Africa’s Gershon Rorich and Colin Pocock 21-14 and 21-15 on Monday.
There are as many teams ranked between the South African pairing of Rorich and Pocock and their Argentinean opponents as there are American states, but the game was as often as close as the American presidential election race.
In both sets the South Africans matched the sixth-ranked pairing blow by blow in the opening stages. In the first they did well until 12-9 before the experience of the Pumas showed and they closed the set out on 21-14. In the second they lasted until 13-10, whereafter the Argentineans surged ahead to finish the match on 21-15.
The larger-than-life difference between the two teams was the service of Baracetti, who bolted 85kph shots across the net with regularity, forcing the South Africans on to the back foot on every occasion.
”They whack that ball hard, especially with a little wind which makes the serve dip quickly; it is difficult to pick up. Look, Gershon is the biggest server back home but out here [he] is one of the slowest, that’s the difference,” explained Pocock.
”You can’t ask for more than this. We have played the world circuit for just three months, they have been out there for 12 years, they won the World Champs in 2001. Before we started the world tour we were ranked 140th. We then got it down to the thirties and based on our last results against Greece we should end up close to 17, not bad for a bunch of beginners.
”We went into the Olympics with one goal in mind — that is to do South African beach volleyball proud and I think we have achieved that goal. When we played Greece, it was in front of 8 000 spectators and prime-time TV back home. You cannot buy that sort of exposure.
”This is the most marketable sport of any of the Olympic sports and it is cheap, all you need is a ball and a net,” enthused Pocock.
In their next match against the 16th-ranked Portuguese team on Wednesday at 11am Greek time, they need to win or at least take one set off them to make it into the next round of 16. — Sapa