Moscow, Russia, June 2, 2017 - For the second-straight FIVB World Tour stop, it will be “Elimination Friday” as the current 64-team field of men and women Beach Volleyball pairs will see 48 teams ousted for the Moscow event after the fourth of six days of competition at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Centre.
Friday’s schedule opens with eight “modified” pool play matches each for men’s and women’s tandems with the losing teams placing 25th in the sixth double gender event on the 2017 FIVB World Tour calendar. The second set of matches for both genders Friday will pit the winners from the morning matches against the losers from Thursday afternoon’s “modified” pool play matches in the first-round of the 24-team elimination brackets.
The winners from Thursday afternoon’s “modified” pool play matches earned a “bye” and were slotted into the second-round of the elimination bracket via a draw and will play the winners from the Friday mid-day matches later in the afternoon with the victors from those contests advancing to Saturday’s quarter-finals.
Men's pairs winning pools Thursday and advancing to the second-round of elimination are:
• Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Austria (Seed No. 17)
• Pedro Solberg/Gustavo "Guto" Carvalhaes, Brazil (6, Qualifying Seed No. 1)
• Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Brazil (3)
• Theo Brunner/Casey Patterson, United States (12)
• Nick Lucena/Phil Dalhausser, United States (4)
• Christian Sorum/Anders Mol, Norway (25, Q3)
• Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira, Spain (10)
• Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin, Russia (15)
Casey Patterson (right) of the United States hits against Tom van Walle of Belgium in an opening match Thursday
Topping the women's groups Thursday and advancing to the second-round of elimination are:
• Laura Ludwig / Kira Walkenhorst, Germany (2)
• Lauren Fendrick / April Ross, United States (9)
• Victoria Bieneck / Isabel Schneider, Germany (19)
• Barbora Hermannova / Marketa Slukova, Czech Republic (6)
• Agatha Bednarczuk / Eduarda "Duda" Lisboa, Brazil (4)
• Sarah Pavan / Melissa Humana-Paredes, Canada (7)
• Louise Bawden / Taliqua Clancy, Australia (12)
• Talita Antunes / Larissa Franca, Brazil (1)
Isabel Schneider of Germany
With the Russian capital hosting a FIVB World Tour event for the 12th-time and consecutively since 2008, the medal matches will be played Sunday with the winning duos in each gender’s competition collecting gold medals and splitting the $10,000 first-place prizes.
Following the Moscow stop, the FIVB World Tour takes a week off before resuming play June 15-18 for a “three-star” $150,000 event in The Netherlands at The Hague. Highlighting the 2017 international calendar for men and women Beach Volleyball players will be the $1-million FIVB World Championships July 28 through August 6 in Vienna, Austria and the $800,000 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals August 23-27 in Hamburg, Germany. Overall, there are 15 men’s and 19 women’s events on the $5.335-million FIVB World Tour schedule.
