Rome, Italy, June 16 – It took third seeds Marcios Araujo and Ricardo Santos a little time to find their form, but now they are in the knockout stages the pair are confident they can go far at the FIVB Swatch World Championships Rome 2011 powered by smart.

After the Brazilians beat Switzerland’s Philip Gabathuler and Jan Schnider, they slipped to a surprise loss to Dutch duo Daan Spijkers and Emiel Boersma. The pair then recovered to beat Canadians Christian Redmann and Ben Saxton and ensure their passage to the round of 32.

 â€œI don’t think we have played so good in the pool, but I think it is most important for the team to stay together,” Marcios. “We’re playing together and share the good vibrations with one another. We have taken a big step towards getting a good result here.

“It is important to lose when you can lose. That’s good for us because for us we have to put it all and to do good things to beat other teams and we have the chance to reach the semi-finals.”

Even in their wins the third seeds have been pushed hard and in all three matches they played beyond on near to the hour mark.

With the likes of defending champions Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann and fellow Brazilians Emanuel Rego and Alison Cerutti going through the pool stages unbeaten they are well aware that they must continue to improve or go home.

“We are taking it step by step,” Marcios said. “There’s the first round, the second round, the third round, the semi-finals and then the final.  We take it day by day and game by game.

“Everybody here wants to win. This is good for us because it puts pressure on us and puts pressure on them. The most important thing is us for us to play together and we have to have more energy and more power than the other teams. “