Shanghai, China, April 29, 2013 – Defending Shanghai Grand Slam champion Todd and Rogers and his new partner Ryan Doherty of the United States will compete as top seeds in the men’s Qualification Tournament here on Tuesday.
Rogers, who had clinched consecutive gold medals on the sand of Shanghai Jinshan in the last two years with Philip Dalhausser, started the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour season with Doherty before settling for the 17th place in the season-opening Fuzhou Open last weekend.
Dalhausser will also return to Shanghai following a successful opening with new teammate Sean Rosenthal in Fuzhou where they were crowned in their first tournament together.
After the withdrawal of Olympic silver medallists Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego, Brazilian reserve team Vitor Gonçalves Felipe and Evandro Gonçalves Oliveira Júnior entered the Main Draw, joining Pedro Solberg Salgado and Bruno Oscar Schmidt, and Ricardo Alex Costa Santos and Álvaro Morais Filho while Hevaldo Sabino Moreira and Thiago Santos Barbosa will play in the Qualification Tournament.
The Dutch duo of Jon Stiekema and Christiaan Varenhorst have also withdrawn from the Shanghai Grand Slam because of Stiekema’s finger injury.
Switzerland (Sebastian Chevallier and Mats Kovatschmove) moved from the Qualification Tournament to the Main Draw to replace the Dutch team, because the Netherlands have no reserve team and Brazil and Germany already have three teams in the Main Draw. Switzerland are also above Austria on the QT ranking because of their NF ranking (best points of their best players, not the actual team).
A total of 32 teams will take part in the Qualification Tournament, which is set to kick off at 9 am local time on Tuesday.
The seeds are based on the individual players' points tally while the top eight teams from the Qualification Tournament will join the 24 Main Draw teams starting on Wednesday.
The double gender Shanghai Grand Slam is the second event on the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar and the first of ten Grand Slams of the season.
The Men’s Main Draw technical meeting will take place on Tuesday evening (local time).