Fuzhou, China, April 24, 2013 – Bottom seeds Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl from Austria upset China’s new pairing Wu Penggen and Wu Jiaxin their first Pool A match on Wednesday to carry on their superb at the Fuzhou Open in China.
The 32nd seeds earned a place in the Main Draw after winning their two qualification matches on Tuesday against Turkey’s Selçuk Sekerci and Murat Giginoglu, and later against Swiss pair Philip Gabathuler and Jonas Weingart.
Huber and Seidl, who took the last spot in the Main Draw, beat China’s Wu – who is a Grand Slam winner with former partner Linyin Xu in Moscow, 2010 - and Wu Jiaxin on court one in straight sets 21-17, 21-12.Top 10 hopes“It was a great win and now we’re still in the competition I hope we can make it through the groups and climb up the rankings. If we can reach the top ten it will be really great," said Huber.“It’s a great feeling, we qualified and now won our first match in the Main Draw, it’s pretty good,” said Seidl. “We didn’t really know one of the players, we knew the older Wu, we played against him last year and lost. "We knew he was a strong player but we didn’t really know what to expect, but we wanted the chance to concentrate on our own game and it worked pretty well and we got the win,” said Huber.Kazakhstan begin well Alexey Sidorenko and Alexandr Dyachenko from Kazakhstan, seeded 11th, worked hard to beat 18th seeds Adrián Gavira Collado and Christian García of Spain in their first pool match of the tournament, 16-21, 21-19, 16-14. The Kazakhstani pair have been together since 2007 and won two Continental Tour silvers earlier this year. “I’m feeling a little tired. It was the first match, first world competition so we were a little nervous,".Sidorenko said. "The team was very experienced, half of the team may have more experience but we did a good job and won.“We hope to play well, to find our game in these good conditions and to improve.”.Gavira and García enter in their first international tournament together. Gavira, 25, is the more experienced of the pair, holding numerous World Tour medals with former partner Pablo Herrera including fifth place at the 2011 World Championships and a ninth-place result at the 2012 Olympic Games. Pool matches continue on Thursday.Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province lies on the southeast coast of mainland China and hosts the Open event for the first time. The city held the AVC Beach Volleyball Continental Cup in 2012 where Cristopher McHugh and Isaac Kapa were part of the silver medal Australian team.The Fuzhou Open is the first of eight Open events during a bumper nine-month season, which also includes the FIVB World Tour – 10 Grand Slams and the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in Stare Jablonki, Poland. The Shanghai Grand Slam is the next tournament on the calendar running from April 30 to May 5.
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