Eleven unbeaten women’s duos after two pool play rounds at FIVB Paraná Open

Paraná, Argentina, October 29, 2014 — With few upsets, 11 women’s teams from six countries  are unbeaten after the first two of three rounds of pool play at  this week’s double-gender US$150,000 FIVB Paraná Open.

This is the sixth time the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour has had an event in Argentina and it is the first time visiting Paraná.

The 2014 FIVB World Tour stop is being held in Paraná through Sunday in a purpose-built venue at Balneario Thompson in Paraná, located in the Entre Rios province on the eastern shore of the Paraná River. On Wednesday three teams each from Brazil and Canada and two duos from Italy led the parade with three 2-0 teams. Also undefeated entering Thursday final round of pool play to determine the 24 teams for elimination play single tandems are from host nation Argentina, the Czech Republic and the United States.

The FIVB Paraná Open is using the FIVB format of a single-day qualification tournament on Tuesday for women and Wednesday for men to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments, round-robin pool play which begins on Wednesday for women and Thursday for men. It will conclude with a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. The women’s semifinals and medal matches will be held this Saturday and the men’s semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.

THE UNDEFEATED
The unbeaten teams are Argentina’s top-seeded Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug, Brazil’s second-seeded Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, Italy’s third-seeded Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth, Brazil’s fourth-seeded Maria Clara Salgado/Carolina Salgado, USA’s fifth-seeded Lane Carico/Kimberly Dicello, Canada’s sixth-seeded Jamie Lynn Broder/Kristina Valjas, Czech Republic’s ninth-seeded Barbora Hermannova/Martina Bonnerova, Canada’s 12th-seeded Kacie MacTavish/Caleigh Whitaker, Canada’s 13th-seeded Victoria Altomare, Italy’s 15th-seeded Giulia Momoli/Laura Giombini and Brazil’s 23rd-seeded Rebecca Cavalcanti/Liliane Maestrini.

Based on tiebrakers, leading the eight pools with undefeated records are Argentinta’s Gallay/Klug, Brazil’s Larissa/Talita, Italy’s Menegatti/Orsi Toth, Brazil’s Salgado Sisters, Canada’s MacTavish/Whitaker, Canada’s Broder/Vajas, Brazil’s Cavalcanti/Maestrini and Czech Republic’s Hermannova/Bonnerova. Czech Republic’s Hermannova/Bonnerova have actually won their pool with a 3-0 record because of forfeits within their pool to advance to Friday’s start of single elimination play.

TEAM ARGENTINA
As the host nation, Argentina has six men’s and five women’s teams in their respective main draws.

For the women, the main draw teams from Argentina are Olympians Gallay/Klug, Maria Zonta/Julieta Puntin. Maria Sancer/ Florencia Amieva and Michella Di Cesare/Florencia DiCesare.

ARGENTINIAN OLYMPIANS
Certainly a home-crowd favorite as well as a legitimate contender for the gold medal on Saturday, Argentina’s Gallay/Klug enjoyed their home sand on Wednesday, winning their first two pool play matches to the delight of the center court crowds, Argentina’s Gallay/Klug opened up by defeating Italy’s 32nd-seeded Laura Cavalluzzi/Jennifer Luca, 21-14, 211-3 in just 22 minutes then in their second crowd-pleaser, Argentine Olympians Gallay/Klug stopped Venezuela’s Olaya Perez/Norisbeth Agudo in straight sets, 21-13, 21-16 in 34 minutes.

Both Gallay and Klug are pleased to be playing an FIVB World Tour event in the home country. Following their second straight win of the day, both had comments to make.

Said Klug following their two pool play victories on Wednesday, “We got the first two wins what a great way to start an FIVB World Tour event in our home country. Both matches were hard because of the high temperatures. We beat Venezuela who beat us in a South American event. We won well, we had fun playing and we celebrate with our people”

Gally commented afterwards, “We want to win, we want to progress, we dream for this tournament. We're playing at a good level and it is important that we keep it that way.”

FIVB PURSE, TOURNEY TOTALS
The FIVB Paraná Open is the 312th FIVB men’s tournament since its first event in 1987 and the 276th FIVB women’s tournament since FIVB began women’s competitions in 1992. Gold medal winning teams in each gender in FIVB Paraná Open will split $11,000, silver will receive $8,000, bronze medalists get $6,000 and the fourth place finishers will earn $4,500 of the $150,000 total purse.

ARGENTINE HISTORY
Men’s champion duo in Corrientes last year was Latvia’s new duo of Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins while women’s champion team was Sophie van Gestal/Madelein Meppelink of the Netherlands.

Through the 2013 event, Argentina has hosted a total of five FIVB World Tour events (4 men, 1 women) with three events held in Mar del Plata. In the men’s totals, Brazil has five medals, followed by Argentina with two and with one men’s medal each in Argentina are Australia, Italy, Switzerland and the USA.

After one FIVB World Tour women’s event held in Argentina through 2013, Brazil leads the medal parade with two total medals followed by the Netherlands with one.

NEXT UP
With the grand slam portion of the 2014 FIVB World Tour complete, the tour continues through December with four FIVB Open events remaining spread across the globe. Remaining on the 2014 calendar are three double-gender FIVB Open events along with one men-only FIVB Open tournament.

This week is the 2014 FIVB World Tour is in Argentina for the double-gender FIVB Paraná Open.

After that events, the 2014 FIVB World Tour will head to Qatar for the men-only FIVB Doha Open next week (Nov. 4-8) then on to India for the double-gender FIVB Vizag Open (Nov. 25-30) in India before concluding in South Africa with the double-gender FIVB Mangaung Open (Dec. 9-14).