Austrians battle back to reach first final in four years

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Celebrations on Center Court for Alex and Clemens! Photocredit: Sebastian Marko

Clemens Doppler and Alex Horst don’t like doing things the easy way – but who cares? They’re in the final of the Poreč Major!

The Austrians, roared on by their legion of fans basking in the glorious Croatian sunshine, faced two match points against Sam Saxton and Chaim Schalk in the deciding set but turned it around and dramatically sealed their place in their first final in four long years.

And, just like yesterday against Guto/Saymon in the quarterfinal, they lost the first set before battling back to seal to win.

“Of course! It’s more fun for the audience!” laughed a delighted Clemens when we asked him if he liked doing things the hard way. “We’re not winning easy, we are coming back from 1-0 in sets and from behind in points in third sets.

“A gold medal match has been a long time coming. We’ve had it once before in Poland right after the Olympics but this is special.

“This is our second home tournament. We always dreamed of reaching the final of Klagenfurt but now we’re here, with all these fans, it’s almost the same. It’s incredible. I can’t believe it.”

For defeated semifinalists Saxton/Schalk attention turns to the bronze medal match in the hope they can add to Canada’s haul of medals after Sarah Pavan and Heather Bansley’s silver yesterday.

“We’d love to join them on the podium,” said Chaim. “That’s what we’ll be aiming to do.

“We’re disappointed to lose of course but it was a high level game of volleyball and points went back and forth a lot.

“But we’ll be ready to come back for bronze.”

The bronze medal match will take place on Center Court at 14:45 CET before Doppler/Horst contest the grand finale at 16:00 CET – make sure you watch it on our live stream!

Center Court was packed out to watch the Austrians triumph. Photocredit: Sebastian Marko.