News Beach volleyball 08/10/2014 Australia’s Jordan and Justine Mowen proceed to main draw for first time at Xiamen Open Xiamen, China, October 8, 2014 – Australia’s JordanMowen and Justine Mowen beat Japan’s Keiko Urata and Yui Nagata 2-0 (21-13,21-18) to go through to the main draw at the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball WorldTour Xiamen Open on Wednesday.Mowen/Mowen carefully adjusted their play to suit thebreezy conditions on Guanyinshan GoldBeach for the first women’s qualification match of the day. With the main drawjust one match away, the Australian girls made sure they grasped the chance. “We’re feeling relieved and excited to get more internationalopportunities, we’ve never made it before so just looking forward to pool playand getting that experience,” said Justine Mowen.Urata/Nagata took the leadin the second set and the two teams began to exchange points before Mowen/Mowenregrouped and closed out the match 21-18. “These conditions are pretty tough so it’s all aboutthe ball control, we’ve played a lot against the Japanese so we knew we had tostep it up and hit hard, use our height and all the other things that we haveas advantages,” said Justine. “We tried to keep things a little bit more together andnot so big and obviously being aware of which way the wind is going so we canrun that way or hit that way,” saidJordan Mowen.Mowen/Mowen began playing on the FIVB World Tour in2009 but had yet to make it into the main draw. The Australian pair are readyto seize the opportunity. “We hope to get some wins, to enjoy the experience andhave no regrets and just put it all out there because we’ve never made itbefore into the main draw so we’d just like to make the most of it,” saidJordan. “All year we’ve been playing with the pressure ofhaving to win to get through, so it’ll be less pressure. We can enjoy it andmaybe we can play a bit more relaxed and play a bit better too,” said Justine.Turnerova/Tomašeková’spreparation pays offIt was another first for Slovakia’s Tina Turnerova andGabriela Tomašeková who utilised their experience to dominate the youngerChinese pair of Wang Xinxin and Wang Yuanyuan. Turnerova/Tomašeková haddone their homework, putting into place an effective plan before going into thematch. “We were definitely lucky to get this team. Of course wewere enquiring about the team and you really cannot compete against ourexperience, which is our higher age and this is an advantage in beachvolleyball. A difference in other fields of life, but in beach volleyball ageis very, very good. So we were analysing the team and we found out that thesystem that we chose was right and we came to the final score 2-0, so that was perfect,”said Turnerova.Intelligent play by Turnerova/Tomašeková made theSlovakians the dominant pair throughout leading to their two set win 2-0(21-16, 21-12). “We have been trying for two years to get to here. Nowit’s the first time to get into the qualification and we really got a chance onthe table, so we took it and it’s really a very nice feeling, I can’t describe,”said Turnerova.Our first goal is done so we are satisfied for now butwe need to have a little meeting, then we will analyse what we need to do nextand we’ll do our best to reach the highest of our possibilities.”In the final qualification match of the day Laura Bloemand Marloes Wesselink from the Netherlands faced Japan’s Miyuki Matsumura andHiroko Matsuyama. The Dutch pair beat Miyuki/Matsuyama 2-0 (21-11, 21-16) in 31 minutes and willnow hope for similar success in the main draw as their ninth place finish at the2014 Anapa Open. With the Grand Slam portion of the 2014 FIVB World Tournow complete, the tour continues after Xiamen with four double-gender FIVB Openevents along with one men-only FIVB Open tournament. The tour will travel to Argentina for the FIVBParana Open (Oct. 28-Nov. 2) before heading to Doha for the men-only FIVB QatarOpen (Nov. 4-8). India will then host the double-gender FIVB Vizag Open (Nov.25-30), before the 2014 calendar comes to a close in South Africa with thedouble-gender FIVB Mangaung Open (Dec. 9-14). Print this Page News {{item.LocalShortDate}} {{item.Title}} All the News