After losing their last qualifying match and an opening "Lucky Losers" draw at the Main Draw technical meeting for the US$350,000 Hyundai Open Barcelona, Latvians Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs regained their "winning ways" here Thursday at the SWATCH FIVB World Tour event on the Placa Carles Buigas.
With an "on-and-off court" victory streak at three, the 28th-seeded Plavins and Samoilovs now challenge fourth-seeded Igor Kolodinsky and Dmitri Barsouk in a third-round winner's bracket match Friday as the Latvians will be looking for their first-ever SWATCH FIVB World Tour success over the Russians in five meetings.
After winning a "Lucky Losers" draw Wednesday evening, Plavins and Samoilovs opened play Thursday by upsetting fifth-seeded Andrew Schacht and Joshua Slack Australia 26-24 and 21-11 in 47 minutes before scoring a 21-11 and 21-15 win in 44 minutes over 12th-seeded Bjorn Berg and Hannes Brinkborg of Sweden.
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