São Paulo, Brazil, September 23, 2014 — Led by a pair of teams from host nation Brazil six other men’s teams from France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Russia and Turkey advanced from Tuesday’s qualification tournament to complete the 32-team main draw field for the very popular double-gender US$800,000 FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam.
The international home of international Pro beach volleyball, Brazil has staged a FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event every year since the start of the international circuit for men in 1987 and women in 1992. The 2013 tournament in Brazil was the first FIVB World Tour event held in São Paulo.
The 2014 FIVB World Tour stop is being held in São Paulo through Sunday in a purpose-built venue with four competition courts at on the grounds of the Barueri Arena.
Advancing to the main draw from Brazil were the teams of Vitor Felipe/Evandro Goncalves and Gustavo Carvalhaes/Allison Cittadin. Joining the Brazilian pairs in Wednesday’s start of round-robin pool play were France’s Youssef Krou/Edourd Rowlandson, Germany’s Armin Dollinger/Clemens Wickler, Poland’s Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol, Spain’s Marco Alfredo/Christian Garcia, Russia’s Nikita Liamin/Dmitri Barsouk and Turkey’s Murat Giginoglu/Volkan Gogtepe.
The last of 10 FIVB Grand Slams on the 2014 FIVB World Tour calendar, the FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam is using the FIVB format of a single-day qualification tournament on Tuesday for women and men to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments, round-robin pool play with begin on Wednesday for both genders. It will conclude with a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. The event is being played on the temporary site in the São Paulo suburb of Burueri.
Women’s and men’s single-elimination play will begin on Thursday the women’s and men’s round of 16 on Friday and women’s and men’s semifinals, concluding the two bronze medal matches on Saturday.. The women’s and men’s gold medal matches and awarding ceremony closing the FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam will be held on Sunday.
To advance to the main draw, Brazil’s Felipe/Goncalves earned a bye into the field of 32 while compatriots Carvalhaes/Cittadin moved forward by winning their qualification match over France’s Jean-Baptiste Dagueere/Yannack Salvetti in two sets, 21-18, 21-12 in 40 minutes.
After his team’s victory, Carvalhaes commented, "We are enjoying our good moment, the past few months we have been getting great results at our national tournaments. It is a dream com true for me to be able to participate in such huge tournament. And I am sure that Allison feels the same. A FIVB Grand Slam is the most important competition for a beach volleyball player besides the Olympics.”
“We are doing our job and getting the results. It feels wonderful to play at home, we have fans supporting us in the stands, and it is great. During the match, we were a bit anxious at the first set, but then, we talked and realized that we need to keep our strategy and manage to improve our game in the second set and get our first win.”
In the other men’s qualification match that was held Tuesday, Russia’s Nikita Liamin/Dmitri Barsouk defeated Argentina’s Pablo Bianchi/Julian Azaad in twin sets, winning the first in overtime, 23-21 and capturing the second much easier, 21-12 in another 40-minute match.
HOME COUNTRY MEN DOMINATE IN BRAZILWith extremely enthusiastic standing-room-only crowds in the stadium center courts each event, Brazil has earned 22 men’s gold medals out of 35 events held in Brazil followed by the USA with 11 and Germany has the other two gold medals.
Brazil has swept the podium four times in men’s competition. Most recently, the Brazilian men secured the medals in 2009 in Brasília.