Lausanne, Switzerland, July 4, 2014 — During this ever-so-brief break between tournaments, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) pauses to look back on some of the significant stats from its 2014 US$10.2 million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.
Following this one-week hiatus, the FIVB will launch a special schedule segment of four FIVB Grand Slam events in four countries over the next four weeks with a combined record purse of $3.6 million. Coming to the country where its world headquarters is located, the 2014 FIVB World Tour will resume July 8-13 with the extremely popular US$800,000 FIVB Gstaad Grand Slam in Switzerland.
With seven men’s events and eight women’s tournaments now completed, just popping out of the oven from the 2014 FIVB World Tour are some key samplings from the mouth-watering FIVB Beach Volleyball menu:
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First-time winners – The theme for the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar could easily be “first-time winners rule.” Of the first seven men’s and eight women’s events, only the FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open and FIVB Stavanger Grand Slam have failed to produce at least one first-time winning player. Fuzhou, Shanghai, Prague, Moscow and Berlin all produced one team of two first-time winners while the FIVB Anapa Open produced a women’s team with two first-time winners, and one member of the men’s team who was a first-time winner. In addition two of the first-time winners, Italy’s Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai and Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova have won two gold medals this season. Lupo/Nicolai won back-to-back events in Fuzhou and Shanghai while Kolocova/Slukova won in the women’s-only FIVB Prague Open and then in the FIVB Berlin Grand Slam. Here is the complete list of first-time winners for 2014:
o FIVB Fuzhou Open men – Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Italy
o FIVB Shanghai Grand Slam women – Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst, Germany
o FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open – none
o FIVB Prague Open women – Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova, Czech Republic
o FIVB Anapa Open women – Victoria Bieneck/Julia Grossner, Germany
o FIVB Anapa Open men – Aleksandrs Solovejs, Latvia
o FIVB Moscow Grand Slam men – Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Konstantin Semenov, Russia
o FIVB Berlin Grand Slam men – Tri Bourne/John Hyden, United States
o FIVB Stavanger Grand Slam – none
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Qualifiers make the final four – Through the first seven men’s and eight women’s events on the 2014 FIVB World Tour calendar, eight teams, five men’s and three women’s, have made the semifinals after progressing to the main draw via the qualifying tournament. This breaks the previous record of seven, through the same number of events, set in 2006 and tied last season, where both seasons had two men’s and five women’s teams make the final four. The season kicked off with the return of Juliana Felisberta, who took a year off, qualifying and winning the silver medal with her new partner Maria Antonelli. The pair would repeat that feat two months later at the FIVB Berlin Grand Slam. The FIVB Anapa Open saw the new team of Angela Lobato/Paula Soria from Spain make their first main draw, after failing to win a match in their first FIVB World Tour event the previous week at the FIVB Prague Open, and run through the elimination bracket before falling in the semi-finals and the bronze medal match to finish fourth. The last two events, the FIVB Berlin Grand Slam and FIVB Stavanger Grand Slam saw a record-breaking five men’s teams fill the eight semifinal spots. For the first time ever, three qualifier teams made the semifinals at the Berlin stop, with all three standing atop the podium at the event’s conclusion. Last week in Stavanger, two more men’s qualifier teams made the semifinals, and both lost, the first time that has happened in the five occasions where at least two men’s teams made the final four. Here is the complete list of qualifying teams to make the final four or best qualifying finishes in 2014:
o FIVB Fuzhou Open women – Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta, Brazil, silver medal
o FIVB Shanghai Grand Slam – best finish 9th-place (four teams)
o FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open – best finish 5th-place (two teams)
o FIVB Prague Open – best finish 17th-place (three teams)
o FIVB Anapa Open women – Angela Lobato/Paula Soria, Spain, 4th-place
o FIVB Moscow Grand Slam – best finish 5th-place (three teams)
o FIVB Berlin Grand Slam women – Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta, Brazil, silver medal
o FIVB Berlin Grand Slam men – Tri Bourne/John Hyden, United States, gold medal; Ryan Doherty/Nick Lucena, United States, silver medal; Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Brazil, bronze medal
o FIVB Stavanger Grand Slam men – Philip Gabathuler/Mirco Gerson, Switzerland, bronze medal; Alexandr Dyachenko/Alexey Sidorenko, Kazakhstan, fourth-place
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German women’s qualifying streak broken – Germany women’s teams were a perfect seven for seven in qualifying a team for the main draw on the FIVB World Tour this season before the streak was broken in the FIVB Stavanger Grand Slam last week. Germany started off with Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude qualifying at the FIVB Fuzhou Open, Victoria Bieneck/Julia Grossner followed at the FIVB Shanghai Grand Slam and the FIVB Prague Open, with Kim Behrens/Sandra Seyfferth qualifying at the Puerto Vallarta Open in between those two. At the FIVB Anapa Open, the team of Jana Kohler/Anni Schumacher was helped by a small qualifying field to advance into the main draw without having to play a match while Teresa Mersman/Isabel Schneider became the fifth different German team to qualify at the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam. In their home country at the FIVB Berlin Grand Slam, Bieneck/Grossner qualified for the third time this season, then lost in the final round of qualifying in Stavanger to Tanja Goricanec/Tanja Huberli of Switzerland to end the streak.
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Oldest men’s winner – With three qualifying teams making the final four at the FIVB Berlin Grand Slam, along with three of the eight players playing in their first FIVB World Tour semi-finals, it’s no doubt that even two more records would be broken when John Hyden of the United States became the oldest men’s winner in an FIVB World Tour event. At 41 years, 8 months, and 15 days, Hyden surpassed the previous record holder, Brazil’s Franco Neto by just over one year. Neto was 40 years, 8 months, and 11 days old when he won the FIVB Marseille Open in July of 2007. In addition Hyden’s partner, Tri Bourne was only 25 years, 0 months, and 2 days old, giving the pair have the largest differential in age for a winning team on the FIVB World Tour. Oddly enough, they also broke Franco Neto’s record from the Marseille 2007 event by just 45 days. Neto won with Pedro Cunha who was 24 years, 1 month, and 12 days old at the time.
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Not a record - USA’s Tri Bourne/John Hyden have qualified in all 5 events this season – one by lucky loser. The record in a season is 9 for 9 by Germany’s Julius Brink/Kjell Schneider in 2004. For the women, the record is 8 and is shared by Laura Bruschini/Annamaria Solazzi of Italy in 2004, Maria Clara Salgado/Carolina Salgado of Brazil in 2007, Morgane Faure/Virginie Sarpaux of France in 2006, and Renata Ribeiro/Talita Antunes of Brazil in 2005.
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Men’s Qualification Percentages - Of the seven men’s events held so far on the 2014 FIVB World Tour, here are some numbers and percentages for FIVB Confederations and countries who have had teams compete in the qualification tournaments and had one or more of the eight teams who advanced to each main draw. Overall for the men, the AVC has had 29.17% (7 of 24) of its teams advance to the main draw, the CAVB 0% (0 of 3) the CEV has had 30.39% (31 of 102), the CSV has had 43.75% (seven of 16) and NORCECA has had 51.85% (14 of 27). Among individual countries by confederation, Qatar (AVC) has qualified 66.67% (2 of 3) and China (AVC) has qualified 37.50% (3 of 8), Netherlands (CEV), 60% (3 of 5), Russia (CEV) 50% (3 of 6) and Latvia (CEV), 40% (4 of 100), Brazil (CSV) 71.43% (5 of 7) and the United States (NORCECA) 90.91% (10 of 11).
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Women’s Qualification Percentages - Of the eight women’s events on the 2014 FIVB World Tour. Overall for the women, the AVC had 18.75% (6 of 32 teams qualify), CEV had 38.61% (39 of 101), CSV had 100.0% (8 of 8) and NORCECA had 64.71% (11 of 17). Among individual countries by confederation, Vanuatu (AVC) has qualified 66.67% (2 of 3) and Japan (AVC) has qualified 28.57% (2 of 7), Germany (CEV) 77.78% (7 of 9) and Italy 47.14% (4 of 7), Brazil (CSV) 100% (4 of 4) and Argentina (CSV) 100% (3 of 3) and Mexico (NORCECA) 75% (3 of 4) and the United States (NORCECA) 62.50% (5 of 8).
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Match wins by Confederation/Country - Overall in men’s competition after seven events, the CSV has won 57.8 percent (89-65) of its matches with NORCECA second at 57.6% (114-86), CEV third at 49.1% (371-384) and the AVC fourth with 35.9% (46-82) counting Top 24 elimination, pool play and qualifying matches. Individually for men, the United States (NORCECA) hashad the best percentage at 65.6% (82-43), followed by Brazil at 65.1% (71-38) and Qatar third at 63.2% (12-7), Latvia fourth at 62.8% (49-29) and Italy fifth at 61.4% (43-27). After eight events in women’s action, the CSV led with at 68.8% (121-55) followed by NORCECA at 48.5% (97-103,) the CEV at 48.2% (350-376), and AVC fourth at 42.9% (102-136). Individually, Brazil topped all women’s play at 71.9% (100-39) with Argentina second at 66.7% (20-10),Spain third at 65.6% (21-11), the United States fourth at 58.9% (66-46) and Germany fifth at 58.6% (89-63).
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Main draw wins by seeds - For the men, seed No.1 leads at 82.9% (34-7 each) with seed 2 second at 78.4% (29-8), seed No. 7 third at 75.0% (27-9), seed No. 4 fourth at 70.6% (24-10) and No. 3 fifth at 66.7% (26-13). For the women, seed No. 2 topped the winning percentage at 81.6% (40-9) with seed No. 1 in second at 80.0% (40-10) and seeds 7 and 4 tied for third at 73.2% (30-11) with seed No. 5 in fifth at 69.8% (30-13).
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Match wins by events played together - Men – 51 to 100 events 60.2% (53-35), 7 to 15 53.8% (221-190) and 25 to 50 51.2% (65-62). Also for men, events played total 101 to 200 events, 58.8% (180-126), over 200 57.1% (40-30). Women – as a team 51-100 66.2% (45-23), 7 to 15 56.7% (318-243), over 100 52.9% (27-24) and 16 to 25 51.7% (92-86); over 200 events played total 67.5 % (54-26), 101 to 200 58.8% (223-156), 51 to 100 51.2% (257-245).
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Total Entries – Through seven men’s events and eight women’s tournaments so far on the FIVB World Tour, there have been a total of 687 different teams entered in the various events, 337 men and 350 women. By Confederations, the CEV has had the most teams compete with 403, followed way back by the AVC with 114, NORCECA with 99, CSV with 68 and the CAVB with 3. By individual countries, Germany (CEV) has had the most with 61, followed by the USA (NORCECA) with 49, Brazil (CSV) and China (AVC) tied with 45 entries each.