Porec, Croatia, June 28, 2017 - Three Austrian men’s team won Main Draw matches here Wednesday during the first of three days of pool play competition at the $600,000 Porec Major.
Winning FIVB World Tour Beach Volleyball matches Wednesday for Austria were 18th-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, 29th-seeded Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz-Telsnigg and 30th-seeded qualifiers Robin Seidl/Tobias Winter.
Doppler and Horst scored a 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) Pool B win in 36 minutes over 15th-seeded Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin of Russia. Doppler and Horst placed second in the 2016 Porec Major after losing the gold medal match to Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil,
Ermacora and Pristauz-Telsnigg posted a 2-0 (21-17, 22-20) Pool D win in 39 minutes over fourth-seeded Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola of Brazil. Seidl and Winter posted a 2-0 (21-17, 22-20) Pool C in 39 minutes over Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena of the United States,
Alison and Bruno, the reigning Olympic and FIVB world champions, won their opening Pool E match as the fifth-seeded Brazilians defeated 28th-seeded qualifiers Armin Dollinger/Jonathan Erdmann of Germany 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) in 39 minutes.
Due to heavy late afternoon and evening rain, the final men's and last two women's matches were postponed until 9 a.m. (local time) Thursday followed by the second round of men’s pool play matches. The men's final pool matches will be Friday morning.
The men’s 24-team elimination rounds will be played Friday afternoon and Saturday. Sunday schedule features semi-finals and medal matches. The Porec Major gold medal team will split the $40,000 first-place prize.