Fuzhou, China, April 21, 2015 – The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Fuzhou Open 2015 gets underway on Tuesday following men’s country quota matches on Monday in which teams from China, Australia and Qatar competed for a place in the qualification tournament. The season opening men’s qualification tournament on April 21 also opens the Olympic qualification window for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil.
In its third consecutive year, the FIVB Fuzhou Open is the first double-gender FIVB Open event of the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar with a prize purse of $150,000.
Australia’s country quota match was between Joshua Court/Damien Schumann and Cole Durant/Casey Grice. Durant/Grice took the match 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) and will face China’s Likejiang Ha/Jian Bao in the qualification tournament. Despite the defeat, Court/Schumann were also enter qualification due to team withdrawal.
Peng Gao/Yang Li met Hao Zhou/Lei Li in the battle for China’s country quota. In the tightest match of the day, P. Gao/Y. Li fought back from losing the first set emerging the victors 2-1 (18-21, 22-20, 15-11).
Qatar’s match was between Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse and Tamar Abdelrasoul/Khallouf Abdelaziz. In another tough match, Jefferson/Cherif claimed the win 2-1 (21-17, 19-21, 15-7).
Canada’s Sam Pedlow/Grant O'Gorman and Isreal’s Sean Faiga/Ariel Hilman are top seeded in the qualification tournament on 21 April and both teams receive a bye directly into the second round.
Jan Dumek/Robert Kufa (CZE) also aim for the main draw in Fuzhou. The two men are experienced players with other partners and joined forces towards the end of 2014. The men’s main draw will begin on 22 April.
The Fuzhou Open is held at the purpose built venue in the city’s Mianjiang Riverside Park. China has hosted a total of 49 FIVB World Tour events and the second Chinese stop on the 2015 calendar will be the double-gender event FIVB Xiamen Open scheduled for September 22 to 27.
The gold medal teams in each gender at the FIVB Fuzhou Open will each split $11,000, the silver $8,000, the bronze $6,000 and fourth place $4,500. The men’s medal matches will be held on Saturday and the women’s medal matches will be held on Sunday.