Men’s champions off to a flying start at Rome 2011
Jonas Reckermann (pictured) and his partner Julius Brink have made a strong start to the FIVB Swatch World Championships Rome 2011 powered by smart, with two wins in two matches.
Rome, Italy, June 15 – With two games gone and two games won all is going to plan for defending men’s champions Jonas Reckermann and Julius Brink at the FIVB Swatch World Championships Rome 2011 powered by smart.
First off the German duo beat Russia’s Alexey Pastukhov and Alexander Likholetov 21-11, 21-13 and followed it up with a 21-17, 21-13 victory over Jefferson Bellaguarda and Patrick Heuscher of Switzerland.
“We’re really happy,” Reckermann said. ”It is always tough to get in a rhythm at the start of a new tournament, especially as we’ve come directly from Beijing.
“Nothing against the Russians, but yesterday it was more or less an easy game; today though we had to work really hard. The Swiss are a good team and won bronze in Beijing and we knew we had to play at a really high level and it worked out.”
The 2009 world champions arrived at the Foro Italico after taking the silver medal at the FIVB Swatch World Tour Beijing Grand Slam.
They now have the chance to finish their pool unbeaten with a win against Michael Kadziola and Jakob Szalankiewicz of Poland on Thursday, but want to maintain the strong start they’ve made.
“We can always improve,” Reckermann said. “No match is the same as the other, it is always a new game at 0-0.
“Sure there are things to improve. We didn’t serve perfectly and we didn’t sign off perfectly. I could have had some more blocks, I didn’t block really well, but it was still ok. We are happy with our performance and the key is to repeat this in the next game.”
