São Paulo, Brazil, September 23, 2014 — Following Tuesday’s qualification tournament to determine the final eight teams in the 32-team women’s main draw, two more teams from host country Brazil have advanced along with single tandems from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the United States and Venezuela at this week’s 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 the specially-constructed complex on the grounds of the Barueri Arena. 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.
Bringing the Brazilian contingent to six women’s teams for Wednesday’s start of round robin pool play, Brazil’s Taiana Lima/Fernanda Alves advanced with a bye and compatriot sisters Maria Clara Salgado/Carolina Salgado moved forward with a convincing two-set win over Italy’s Laura Cavalluzzi/Jennifer Luca, 21-10, 21-11 in just 27 minutes to conclude the Tuesday’s qualification tournament .
With their qualification wins on Tuesday, the six other advancing women’s teams are Austria’s Barbara Hansel/Stefanie Schwaiger, Germany’s Chantal Laboureur/Anni Schumacher, Netherlands’ Rimke Braakman/Jantine van der Vlist, Poland’s Katarzyna Kociolek/Jagoda Gruxzcynska, USA’s Brittany Hochevar/Heather Hughes and Venezuela’s Olaya Perez/Norisbeth Agudo.
In the only three-set match of the day, Austria’s Hansel/Schwaiger fought through three tough sets to finally prevail over Italy’s Lucia Bacchi/Guilia Momoli, 21-14, 18-21 and 18-16 in 56 minutes, the longest match of the day.
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.
The Salgado sisters took advantage of the opportunity they received after starting out Monday as a reserve team but then were brought into the qualification tournament after several no-shows in the original qualifying field.
Carolina Salgado said after her team’s qualification win, “Our service worked well during the entire match, and that caused some hard time at their reception effort. They had some difficulties making the side out. We imposed our game and managed to win without any troubles. We are eager to participate on this tournament, and being able to be here is amazing. We have never played here in Barueri before, so this is our first contact with the fans. I hope the all stands are full during the competition.”
BRAZILIAN WOMEN’S BOUNTY
With extremely enthusiastic standing-room-only crowds in the stadium center courts each event, in the first 30 women’s events in Brazil, the home country has earned 18 gold medals following the by the USA with 11 and China has the other gold. Brazil has swept the podium five times in women’s tournaments. Most recently, the Brazilian women’s most recent sweep was in 2008 in Guarajà.
FIVB WORLD TOUR LEADERS
The top three teams in each gender at FIVB Grand Slam events receive 800, 720 and 640 points respectively on the 2014 FIVB World Tour.
USA’s Phil Dalhausser/Sean Rosenthal duo continues as the men’s point leader with 5,440 points. Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins is second with 5,290 points in the men’s 2014 FIVB World Tour point standings followed by Brazil’s Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt with 4,970, Poland’s Mariusz Prudel/Grzegorz Fijalek with 4,240 points fourth and fifth is Italy’s Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai with 4,140.
In the 2014 FIVB World Tour men’s season earnings, the leading team continues to be USA’s Dalhausser/Rosenthal with $318,000 followed by Brazil’s Alison/Schmidt with $230,000 and Poland’s Fijalek/Prudel third with $229,000.
For the women, Brazil’s Juliana Felisberta/Maria Antonelli are still at the top with 5,760 points followed by Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas with 5,550 and USA’s April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings third with 4,940 points.
In the 2014 FIVB World Tour women’s season earnings, continuing to lead is USA’s A. Ross/Walsh Jennings with $265,000 followed by Brazil’s Brazil’s Juliana/Antonelli second with $233,375 and Brazil’s Bednarczuk/Seixas third with $229,000.
TEAM BRAZIL
As the host nation, Brazil has six women’s teams in the field of 32, four teams automatically pre-seeded into the main draw and the two that advanced from the qualifier. For the women, the pre-seeded main draw teams from Brazil are Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Juliana Felisberta/Maria Antonelli, Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, Liliane Maestrini/Rebecca Cavalcanti. The advancing Brazilian women’s qualification teams are Taiana Lima/Fernanda Alves and sisters Carolina and Maria Clara Salgado.
São Paulo REPLAY
Winning the gold medal at the men’s 2013 FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam in Brazil was the duo of Brazil’s Pedro Salgado/Bruno Oscar Schmidt. Winning the 2013 women’s FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam gold medal in São Paulo was USA’s April Ross, Keri Walsh Jennings..
The men’s silver medal in São Paulo last year went to USA’s Phil Dalhausser/Sean Rosenthal while the men’s bronze medal was won by Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins over Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira. The women’s silver medal last year went to Germany’s Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst while the women’s bronze was won last year by Brazil’s Maria Antonelli/Agatha Bednarczuk over Italy’s Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth.
J’s BACK, AND NOW LARISSA, TOO
After sitting out last year’s FIVB World Tour, Brazil’s iconic Juliana Felisberta Silva returned to team with the very talented veteran Maria Antonelli. Juliana played domestically in 2013 following the one-year retirement of her legendary teammate Larissa Franca with whom she won an unprecedented seven FIVB World Tour season point championships between 2005 and 2012, the 2011 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships and the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games. In addition to leading the women’s 2014 FIVB World Tour point standings and being second in earnings, overall the Juliana/Antonelli duo has a 60-23 record on this year’s FIVB World Tour, with four silver medals (Fuzhou, Puerto Vallarta, Berlin, Klagenfurt) and one bronze (The Hague). Antonelli played last season with Agatha Bednarczuk and finished fifth in the 2013 FIVB World Season Rankings.
Brazil’s Larissa made her return to the FIVB in The Hague in July, teaming with 2013 FIVB season point champion and fellow Olympian Talita Antunes where they finished ninth in their first tournament back with a 3-1 record, losing only to Brazil’s eventual champions Taiana Lima/Fernanda Alves and the new duo went 2-2 and finished ninth in Long Beach, Calif. USA before capturing the gold medal both in Klagenfurt, Austria and Stare Jablonki Poland to compile a 21-4 record as a team.
The two Brazilian tandems of former partners met for the gold medal in Austria with Larissa/Talita claiming the win of Juliana/Antonelli in two sets, 22-20, 21-19. When they were a team, Brazil’s Juliana/Larissa won a FIVB World Tour event .in their homeland four times
FIVB PURSE, TOURNEY TOTALS
The FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam is the 310th FIVB men’s tournament since its first event in 1987 and the 27rrd FIVB women’s tournament since FIVB began women’s competitions in 1992. Gold medal winning teams in each gender in São Paulo will split $57,000, silver will receive $43,000, bronze medalists get $32,000 and the fourth place finishers will earn $24,000 of the $800,000 total purse.
THIS IS São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in both of the Americas and in the southern hemisphere, and the world’s 11th largest city by population.. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the most populous metropolitan area in Brazil, the second most populous in the Americas and the seventh largest in the world. São Paulo is the capital of the state of São Paulo, Brazil's most populous state. It exerts strong regional influence in commerce, finance, arts and entertainment and a strong international influence.] The name of the city honors Saint Paul of Tarsus.
NET POWER TIME
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar features a record purse of US$10.2 million with a season that extends from late April to mid-December competing at 21 venues in 18 countries. This year’s FIVB World Tour includes a record 10 FIVB Grand Slam events, the inaugural Grand Slam Finale and 10 FIVB Open Tournaments throughout the world, helping expand the door for development of the sport even further.
The FIVB Grand Slam competitions, all double-gender, have eight with $800,000 in total purses while both The Hague, Netherlands and the Long Beach, Calif., USA event had $1 million each in prize money, the most in FIVB Grand Slam history. The nine FIVB Open tournaments in 2014, seven double-gender, one men only and one women only, have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events, $75,000 for the single-gender.
NEXT GEN
As part of the initiatives of FIVB President Dr Ary S. Graça F° and his leadership team, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball international calendar also included a record four age-group FIVB World Championships along with the 2014 Nanjing (China) Youth Olympic Games.
In the inaugural youth Olympics for beach volleyball in August, winning the gold medals were Eduarda Lisboa/Ana Patricia Silva for the women and Russia’s Oleg Stoyanovski/Artem Yarzutkin.
The 2014 FIVB age groups world championships got started in Myslowice, Poland with Poland’s Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol winning the men’s gold medal for the home country and Australia’s Mariafe Artacho/Nicole Laird winning the women’s gold medal in the FIVB U23 World Championships. In Acapulco, Mexico, winning the history-making gold medals for the first-time event was Switzerland’s Florian Breer/Yves Haussener for the men and by USA’s Morgan Martin/Kathryn Plummer for the women. In the FIVB U21 world champions in Larnaka, Cyprus, men’s gold went to Poland’s Michael Bryl/Kacper Kujawiak and the women’s gold was won by Canada’s Sophie Bukovec/Tiadora Miric and the gold medal winners at the FIVB U19 World Championships in Porto, Portugal were won by Brazil’s Arthur Mariano/George Wanderley for the men and for the women, Brazil’s Andressa Cavalcanti/Eduarda Lisboa captured the gold medal.