28.10.2017, 07:15
Favourites ease through Champions Cup quarter-finals

REVIEW: Ciudad de Malaga and Multichem Szentendrei continued to dominate as the quarter-finals of the EHF Beach Handball Champions Cup took place.

Favourites ease through Champions Cup quarter-finals

The run of success for defending men's EHF Beach Handball Champions Cup champions Club BM Playa Ciudad de Malaga and 2015 women's winners Multichem Szentendrei continued on Saturday as the quarter-finals took place.

Both Ciudad de Malaga and Szentendrei earned straight-sets victories in their quarter-final matches. Szentendrei beat Portuguese team OS GORDOS LABMINHO / Clube Naval Leca 2:0, easing away in the second set.

Meanwhile the Spanish side defeated Dutch team Hiekka Hauskaa 2:0 and like Szentendrei go unbeaten into the semi-finals.

In the other women's quarter-finals, Detono Zagreb took the first set against Brüder Ismaning before the German club roared back in the second set and then clinched the shootout by a single goal.

C.BM Playa Algeciras and Westside had more straightforward wins, beating opponents BHT GRU JUKO Piotrkow Trybunalski and SPORT CLUB Senec - Cannabis Energy Drink respectively in straight sets.

Of the four semi-finalists, only the Hungarian club have so far won all their matches. They face Playa Algeciras in the next round, with the second semi-final seeing Brüder Ismaning play Westside.

In the men's competition, Team Italia earned their place in the quarter-finals on Saturday morning when they beat Kävlinge HK. But the Italian side were unable to progress any further after being beaten 2:0 by “Ekaterinodar” Krasnodar in the afternoon.

An all-Iberian quarter-final saw Portuguese club OS Gordos / Labminho - Clube Naval de Leca beat their Spanish rivals Pinturas Andalucía BM Playa Sevilla in two close sets. Hungarian side Orosházi FKSE Hír-Sat took the final semi-final spot, beating BHT Auto Forum Petra Plock 2:0.

Ciudad de Malaga will play OS Gordos in one of Sunday's two semi-finals, while Krasnodar and Orosházi will face off in the other. Ciudad de Malaga and Krasnodar will take confidence from knowing they both beat their semi-final opponents in the preliminary round of the competition.

Follow the EHF Beach Handball Champions Cup live and on social media

Over the four days of the tournament, the EHF offers all beach handball fans plenty of opportunities to follow the event.

The semi-finals and finals will be streamed live on ehfTV. This coverage will be supplemented by a number of highlight and best-of clips from the event, which will also be available on YouTube as well as on the beach handball Facebook page.

All matches can be followed with the dedicated beach handball ticker and the respective statistics are available for all men's and all women's teams on the respective event pages.

Furthermore there will be continuous updates via Instagram stories on the EHF Beach Handball account and on Snapchat (ehf_live).

TEXT: Joanne Harris