Rome, Italy, June 18 – After starting the tournament slowly Marcio Araujo and Ricardo Santos are ready to step up their performances once again for the final of the men’s competition in the FIVB Swatch World Championships Rome 2011 powered by smart.

Early in the tournament the Brazilian pair slipped to a pool defeat by the Netherlands’ Daan Spijkers and Emiel Boersma, but eventually found their groove as the competition continued and eventually saw off Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins to reach the final.

“To be in the final, it’s amazing,” Marcio said. “I’m always happy to reach a final. It is the first final with Ricardo this year on the tour and it is very important for us to have got to the final because we earn Olympic qualification points.

“They played good, they played pretty good. They are a good team. They beat us in China, so we had to put extra pressure on them in this tournament because we knew it was very important for us.”

The Latvian pair pushed Marcio and Ricardo hard, before the Brazilians won 22-20, 21-16. It was another hard match for the third seeds who saw off Spain’s Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira Collado in the quarterfinals earlier on Saturday.

“All the games have been tough matches,” Marcio said. “At the beginning we were a little bit slow and then we came back and started building and building. This shows how strong we are as a team and this week we have got better and better and better.”

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