Lausanne, Switzerland, April 21, 2014 –
The Fuzhou Open in China marks the start of the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, a competition that will run until the Durban Open in December and features a record 10 Grand Slam tournaments and a further nine Open events.
The Fuzhou Open will run from April 22 with the men’s qualifiers until April 27 when the women’s medal matches take place at Mianjiang Riverside Park. The winning pair in each gender will share US$11,000 from an overall pot of $175,000.
Fuzhou opens the World Tour for the second consecutive year and Phil Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal will be back to defend the gold medals they won in 2013. One of half of the women’s winners – Chen Xue – returns, but this time with Xinya Xia, rather than Zhang Xi.
Talita Antunes and Taiana Lima will begin the defence of their women World Tour title, as will Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs in the men’s.
China has previously hosted 43 previous FIVB World Tour events including 17 men’s and 26 women’s tournaments. China teams have won 16 previous medals on home soil, including two men’s silver medals, five women’s gold medals, five women’s silver medals, and four women’s bronze medals.
Once the action in Fuzhou wraps up the Tour stays in China and moves on to Shanghai, where the first Grand Slam takes place from April 29-May 4. From there the Tour moves to Mexico for the Puerto Vallarta Open from May 6-11.