Hamburg, Germany, August 24, 2017 - Men’s teams from four countries captured pool titles here Thursday at the $800,000 Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals presented by Vodafone where three of the four pairs were undefeated in group action while reigning FIVB world champions Evandro Goncalves/Andre Loyola of Brazil topped their pool despite losing a match.
Seeded second in the competition, Evandro and Loyola advanced with a bye to Saturday’s quarterfinals by defeating seventh-seeded Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin of Russia 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) in a 37-minute match Thursday.
The Brazilians dropped their opening match Wednesday in three sets to 10th-seeded Theo Brunner/Casey Patterson of the United States. Later Wednesday, the Americans dropped a three-setter to Krasilnikov and Liamin, who landed on the podium at the 2017 FIVB World Championships in Vienna as the bronze medal winners.
With a three-way tie in Pool B, Evandro and Loyola had the best point-ratio among the three teams at 1.0444 followed by the Russians (1.0222) and the Americans (0.9434).
Also winning pools Thursday with undefeated marks to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals with a guaranteed fifth-place finish were top-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena of the United States, fifth-seeded Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai of Italy and sixth-seeded Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak of Poland.
The third annual Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals continues through Sunday when the men’s final four matches will be played. The women’s medal matches will be contested Saturday as the winning teams in each gender’s competition will split the $100,000 first-place prizes.
