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Beach volleyball 25/04/2014

Samoilovs and Smedins through to semis at FIVB Beach Volleyball Fuzhou Open

Fuzhou, China, April 25, 2014 - Latvia's Aleksandrs
Samoilovs and Janis Smedins are through to the semifinals at the FIVB Beach
Volleyball Fuzhou Open after overwhelming Olympic silver medalist Emanuel Rego
and his new partner Pedro Solberg Salgado 2-0 (21-14, 21-19) on Friday.

Topping Pool E, Samoilovs and Smedins progressed
directly into the second round of the single elimination phase meeting Spain's
third seeds Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira in their first match of the day.
The Latvians had to come from one set down to win 2-1 (23-25, 21-17, 16-14).

Their third round match proved less of a challenge
against Emanuel and Pedro, defeating the newly-formed Brazilian pair in just 35
minutes.

"They had more mistakes today," said
Smedins. "In pool matches we didn't play our best game, we also lost one
match. But we played good today, I feel

happy about that."

Smedins said that the victory against Pedro gave him a
"special" feeling.

"It's good to win against Pedro because we were
fighting hard last year for the first place in the World Tour rankings. It's
very nice," said Smedins.

Samoilovs and Smedins will play another Brazilian pair
- Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt - for a spot in the gold medal match
on Saturday.

"It won't be an easy match. We need to play very
good to beat them (Alison/Bruno). We want to get a medal in the first
tournament of this year," said Smedins.

In an exciting all-Brazilian showdown, Alison and Bruno came out on top against
top-seeded compatriots Ricardo Alex Costa Santos and Alvaro Morais Filho 2-1
(21-14, 16-21, 17-15) to reach the final four.

The other semifinal will feature Jon Stiekema and
Christiaan Varenhorst from the Netherlands and Italy's Paolo Nicolai and Daniele
Lupo.

Stiekema and Varenhorst nailed two quick wins on
Friday to advance, defeating Plavins and Solovejs of Latvia 2-0 (21-18, 21-17)
in 34 minutes before easing past Swiss qualifiers Mats Kovatsch and Jonas
Kissling 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) in 34 minutes as well.

Nicolai and Lupo edged Alexander Brouwer and Michiel
van Dorsten of the Netherlands 2-1 (18-21, 21-15, 15-11) to reach the
semifinals in Fuzhou for the second straight year.

Last year the Italian duo grabbed the silver medal
here after going down to USA's Sean Rosenthal and Philip Dalhausser in the
final.

The defending champions were eliminated in the second
round of the knock-out phase, losing to Alison and Bruno 2-1 (15-21, 21-17,
15-12).

Fuzhou, capital of the Fujian province lies on the
southeast coast of Chinese mainland and hosts the Open event for the second
straight year.

In addition to the Fuzhou Open, two other stops are
scheduled in China in 2014 on the FIVB international schedule: the FIVB
Shanghai Grand Slam (April 29 to May 4) and the FIVB Xiamen Open (October 7 to
12). All three are double-gender events.

Fuzhou
Open Tournament Page

Fuzhou
Open Tournament Notes

2014
Beach Volleyball Media Guide

Men’s
results

Women’s results

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