VIENNA — Canada's team of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes finished fourth at the FIVB beach volleyball world championship on Saturday, losing 2-1 to Brazil in the bronze-medal match.
The Brazilian duo of Talita Antunes and Larissa Franca defeated Toronto's Humana-Paredes and Pavan, of Kitchener Kitchener, Ont., 21-12, 16-21, 18-16.
Canada led 5-0 in the third set before Brazil stormed back.
"It's very disappointing, there is no absolutely excuse," said Pavan, who was playing in her seventh tournament with Humana-Paredes. "I don't know if we relaxed and thought 'oh, we got this.' I don't know if we took a breath for a second, but we needed to keep the pressure on.
"We let them off the hook."
Added Humana-Paredes: "I am really disappointed that we couldn't close that out but I think we showed really great resilience in that game to come back from such a bad first set. I'm really proud of our fight."
This Canadian team has reached the podium four times on the 2017 FIVB World Tour.
Germany's Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst won gold while the United States took silver.
In the men's quarter-finals, Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola of Brazil defeated Calgary's Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk of Red Deer, Alta., 2-1 (17-21, 22-20, 15-10) to finish fifth — the team's best showing for this season.
"Both teams were siding out very well, and in the third they managed to put a lot more service pressure and that put us just enough behind that we couldn't come back," said Saxton. "They served really hard and I struggled passing a bit, that turned the match.
"It was a good experience overall, we played some really good matches."
The Canadian Press
