The first day of ADCC 2009 was one of intense emotion, both for those present at the Badalona Sports Pavilion, in Barcelona, and those keeping up with the goings-on via GRACIEMAG.com.
Ronaldo Jacare won the supermatch against Robert Drysdale and the semifinals for both men and women have been defined.
After a round-of-eight with few surprises, the classics started to unfold among the four survivors in each category.
The first to take place was between Saulo Ribeiro and Romulo Barral. The seasoned Saulo showed a young man’s physical conditioning in passing guard and scoring enough points to eliminate the current medium heavyweight world champion of Jiu-Jitsu.
A strong candidate for best submission of the event arose in the under 99kg quarterfinals. With a sensational flying armbar, Vinicius Magalhaes submitted two-time absolute JJ world champion (2003/2004) Marcio “Pe de Pano” Cruz.
The big surprise of the day came when David Avellan dispatched Tarsis Humphreys in with a rear-naked choke in the under 88kg quarterfinals.
In a hotly-disputed match only decided in overtime, Marcelo Garcia had his hands full with a game Kron Gracie, before sinking a guillotine from the mount.
Among the lightest, all the favorites won without great difficulty and the semis offers up two true classics.
Check out who’s still in the fight for the title:
Over 99kg
Fabricio Werdum vs Saulo Ribeiro
Jeff Monson vs Roberto Abreu
Under 99kg
Xande Ribeiro vs Vinicius Magalhaes
Glover Teixeira vs Gerard Rinaldi
Under 88kg
Andre Galvao vs David Avellan
Braulio Estima vs Rafael Lovato Jr
Under 77kg
Marcelo Garcia vs K-Taro Nakamura
Pablo Popovitch vs Gregor Gracie
Under 66kg
Rani Yahya vs Rubens Charles “Cobrinha”
Rafael Mendes vs Leo Vieira
FEMALE
Over 60kg
Penny Thomas vs Cris Cyborg
Hannette Staak vs Rosângela Conceicao
Under 60kg
Hillary Williams vs Sayaka Shioda
Luanna Alzuguir vs Laurence Cousin
Saulo showed Romulo that he’s still the boss in no-gi and gets a sweet revenge on his loss in the Mundials 2007 final. Hope Saulo will win the over 99kg division.
i hope he wins it too!