Noslen Diaz and Jorge Luis Alayo

Havana, June 16 (ACN)-- The Cuban men's duo of Noslen Diaz-Jorge Luis Alayo lost in the round of 32, and could not advance to the top 16 of the World Beach Volleyball Championship, a competition that will conclude next June 19 in Rome, Italy.

According to the International Federation website www.fivb.com, Diaz and Alayo fell 0-2 to the Italian pairing of Paolo Nicolai-Samuele Cottafava, silver medalists of the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.

The first set the young Caribbeans showed their immediate future, when they were outplayed in two close and identical 18-21 partials by Nicolai and Cottafava, who had to sweat on the court to advance to Thursday's round of 16.

Nicolai was the top scorer of the match with 24 points, distributed in 18 in attack and six in blocking, followed by Alayo (19/15-4-0), Diaz (13/13-0-0) and Cottafava (10/9-0-1), in that order.

The Cubans achieved similar numbers in attacking (28-28), but were outplayed in blocking (6-4), serving (1-0) and errors committed contributing points to the opponents (4-7), according to the match statistics.

Undoubtedly, a good performance of the debutants in world competitions, as they finished the group phase in second place in section J, with two successes and one setback, tied with the Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wicklers.

In their first presentation they lost to the Australians Christopher McHugh and Paul Burnett, 0-2 (15-21, 18-21), but in the next two they defeated the Teutons Nils and Clemens 2-1 (18-21, 23-21 and 15-10) and the Uruguayans Hans Hannibal and Marco Cairus 2-1 (28-30, 21-19 and 15-11), in that order.

On the other hand, the Cuban women's duo of Leila Martinez-Ledianny Echeverria could not advance this Tuesday to the round of the best 32, falling 1-2 against the Swiss duo of Bobner and Vergé-Dépré F, with a score of 16-21, 21-13 and 12-15.

Thus, the Cubans said goodbye to the tournament with a third place in group H, with a negative balance of one win and two setbacks, to which they added the one suffered against the Swiss, in a world championship in which 48 pairs were registered in each gender (m and f), divided into 12 groups of four.