FIVB Beach Volleyball Open event heading to Xiamen, China

The sixth of nine Open events on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 2015 calendar, China will present the double-gender FIVB Xiamen Open from September 22 to 27. It will be the third time Xiamen has hosted a FIVB World Tour event having also hosted a FIVB Grand Slam in 2013 and a FIVB Open in 2014.

In addition to the FIVB Xiamen Open, the other stop scheduled in China in 2015 will be the double-gender FIVB Fuzhou Open from April 21 to 26.

The men’s champion duo in Xiamen last year was France’s Youssef Krou/Edouard Rowlandson while women’s champion team was Brazil’s Juliana Felisberta/Maria Antonelli.

Xiamen is one of eight Chinese cities to host an international FIVB beach volleyball event. Others have been Beijing, Dalian, Fuzhou, Lianyungang, Maoming, Sanya and Shanghai.

China has hosted 49 FIVB World Tour events up until 2014, including 20 men’s and 29 women’s tournaments. The hosts have won 19 previous medals on home soil, including two men’s silver medals, six women’s gold medals, seven women’s silver medals, and five women’s bronze medals.

In the 20 FIVB men’s events up until 2014, Brazil has the most men’s medals with 24, followed by Germany and the United States with seven each, the Netherlands with four, Spain and Switzerland three each, China with two and with one men’s medal each have been Argentina, Austria, France, Latvia and Russia.

Through 29 FIVB women’s events in China until 2014, Brazil leads the medals race with 29 in total followed by the United States with 22, China with 17, German with eight, Australia with four, the Netherlands with three, Austria with two and with one women’s medal each are Italy, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.

The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 2015 calendar will include five FIVB Grand Slams, a new FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball Major Series of three events, six FIVB Opens and a special FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball Season Final in the United States.

The showcase event will be the $1 million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands 2015.

A total of 14 countries will host events this year as the FIVB World Tour 2015 also begins the Olympic qualification process with all FIVB World Tour events (except the World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine the 15 vacancies for each gender that will take part in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

The 2015 FIVB World Ranking system will again include FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam and Open events along with additional pre-approved events at the inter-continental, continental and national levels.

Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments – whether FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam or FIVB Beach Volleyball Open – are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds.

The 2014-2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Continental Cup also returns this year as it starts its portion of the qualification process for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil.

Xiamen, also known as Amoy, is a major city on the southeast (Taiwan Strait) coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with a population of 3.67 million.

Xiamen was a treaty port in the 19th century and one of the four original Special Economic Zones opened to foreign investment and trade when China began economic reforms in the early 1980s. In 2006, Xiamen was ranked as China's second "most suitable city for living", as well as China's "most romantic leisure city" in 2011.