Beach volleyball Olympic champion Laura Ludwig and her partner Margareta Kozuch missed the semi-finals in Tokyo.
In the quarter-finals of the Olympic Games, the duo from Hamburg was defeated by the world number five Alix Klineman / April Ross from the USA 0: 2 (19:21, 19:21).
Of the originally three German duos in Japan, only the team of Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler is now in the competition.
In their quarter-finals on Wednesday (3 p.m. CEST), the runner-up world champions will meet Vyacheslav Krasilnikow and Oleg Stojanowski from Russia in a new edition of the World Cup finals from two years ago.
No set win against American women
Against the last remaining US team around Ross, who was highly decorated with two Olympic and three World Cup medals, Ludwig / Kozuch fell 2: 4 first in a two-point deficit in again great warmth and high humidity. With the onset of rain they equalized again at 7: 7 and in turn moved away to 11: 8. This lead did not hold at first either and the set remained balanced until 19:19. Then the USA used a serve that was minimally too long and a somewhat restrained attack by Kozuch to lead the sentence.
The second movement began similarly.
Ludwig / Kozuch fell 3: 5 behind, stayed present and equaled to 7: 7.
At 9: 8 they took their first lead in the second round and immediately expanded it to 10: 8.
Again the buffer did not last long in the match at a high level, at 11:11 the set was balanced again.
Both teams did not give each other anything, and the service errors from the first encounters were limited at Ludwig / Kozuch.
Two rallies with Ludwig's unsuccessful effort at the end gave the USA a two-point lead to 18:16.
At the second match point for the USA, Ludwig stretched in vain.