Volleyball Canada – Hamburg, Germany, August 26, 2017 – Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes (Toronto, ON) and Sarah Pavan (Kitchener, ON) finish fourth at the US$800,000 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals after a loss to Talita Antunes and Larissa Franca of Brazil. 
 
The Brazilians defeated Canada 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) in 36 minutes.
 
With the win, Talita and Larissa split $50,000 for the bronze medal finish while the Canadians shared $35,000. 

“We had some opportunities to turn points but we didn’t take advantage of them,” said Pavan. “They played better today than I think they did the entire tournament. Their side out was very consistent and they didn’t really make any errors. It’s disappointing not to be in the podium, but when this pain goes away we’ll be very satisfied with our first season together.”

In the gold medal match, reigning Olympic and world champions Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany posted a 2-1 (21-17, 19-21, 15-10) win in 51 minutes over fourth-seeded Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda “Duda” Lisboa of Brazil.

On the men’s side, US team Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena rallied from a four-point deficit in the second set of their quarter-final match on Saturday morning to post a three-set win over North American rivals Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk.
 
The top-seeded Dalhausser and Lucena scored a 2-1 (21-23, 25-23,15-12) win in 57 minutes over the 12th-seeded Canadians to advance to Sunday’s semi-finals.
 
Trailing 19-15 and 20-18 in the second set with the Canadians holding three match points, Dalhausser and Lucena recovered by scoring 10 of the last 14 points in the set. The Americans, who led throughout the third set with only two ties in the set, have now won four of the five FIVB World Tour matches against Saxton and Schalk.
 
“It’s a tough loss,” said Saxton, who is from Calgary. “We were ahead in the second and could have won that one. A couple of mistakes by us and good plays by them turned things around. Overall we played pretty strong in the match so I’m not going to hang it on my head for too long”. 
 
Saxton and Schalk will share $20,000 for placing fifth.

Canada’s other entry, Brandie Wilkerson and Heather Bansley, finished ninth at the Hamburg Finals.

• Web stream: www.swatchmajorseries.com
• Full results: http://worldtour.2017.fivb.com/en/

Photo and reports: FIVB/Swatch Major Series

Volleyball Canada media contact:
Jackie Skender
jskender@volleyball.ca
Phone: 613.794.7676