Moscow, Russia, June 2, 2017 - One would think that the start of play here Friday in the US$150,000 FIVB World Tour event at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Centre was more like an exhibition for “snow volleyball”, but that was not the case as 16 men’s and women’s Beach Volleyball were played to finalize the field for the elimination brackets.
Teams from 11 countries won the final “modified” pool play matches to advance to the afternoon elimination sessions where two rounds will be played to set the lineup for Saturday’s quarter- and semi-final contests. The medal matches will be played Sunday where the winning teams will split the $10,000 first-place prizes.
Host Russia had four teams (two men and two women) netting final pool play wins Friday morning where play started with 10°c (44°f). Other countries with morning wins were Australia, Belarus, Brazil, China, Cuba, Finland, Latvia, Netherlands Poland and the United States. Here are the matches for the first-round of elimination.
Women
• Kelly Claes/Sara Hughes, United States (No. (17-seed) vs. Summer Ross/Brooke Sweat, United States (11)
• Karla Borger/Margareta Kozuch, Germany (20, No. 2 qualifying seed) vs. Svetlana Kholomina/Olga Motrich, Russia (32)
• Fernanda Alves/Barbara Seixas, Brazil (5) vs. Taru Lahti/Riikka Lehtonen, Finland (18)
• Maria Antonelli/Carolina Salgado, Brazil (15, Q1) vs. Ekaterina Birlova/Nadezda Makroguzova Russia (23)
• Emily Day/Brittany Hochevar, United States (25, Q5) vs. Rebecca Cavalcanti/Ana Patricia Silva, Brazil (30)
• Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude, Germany (3) vs. Fan Wang/Yuan Yue, China (13)
• Nina Betschart/Tanja Huberli, Switzerland (10) vs. Jolien Sinnema/Joy Stubbe, Netherlands (24, Q4)
• Kristina May/Taylor Pischke, Canada (22) vs. Jagoda Gruszczynska/Kinga Kolosinska, Poland (28
Men
• Evandro Goncalves/Andre Loyola, Brazil (5) vs. Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin, Russia (8)
• Maciej Rudol/Jakub Szalankiewicz, Poland (24) vs. Ilya Leshukov/Alexander Likholetov, Russia (32, Q24)
• Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen, Germany (20) vs. Billy Allen/Stafford Slick, United States (27, Q10)
• Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Latvia (1) vs. Rihards Finsters/Edgars Tocs, Latvia (29, Q20)
• Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo, Italy (11) vs. Christopher McHugh/Damien Schumann, Australia (23)
• Michal Bryl/Grzegorz Fijalek, Poland (14) vs. Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza, Latvia (18)
• Saymon Barbosa/Alvaro Filho, Brazil (2) vs. Aliaksandr Dziadkou/Aliaksandr Kavalenka, Belarus (28, Q15)
• Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen, Netherlands (7) vs. Nivaldo Diaz/Sergio Gonzalez, Cuba (19)
