Lucerne, Switzerland, May 16, 2015 - With ideal Beach Volleyball weather returning to the Lido courts here Saturday, women’s teams from Austria, Canada, Germany and The Netherlands have advanced to the “final four” matches at the inaugural FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Lucerne Open 2015.
The featured semi-final match will have 10th-seeded Jamie Broder/Kristina Valjas of Canada challenging fifth-seeded Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel of The Netherlands. The Canadians captured the gold medal at the 2015 season-opening FIVB World Tour event last month in China while the Dutch ladies will be the top-seeded team when the 2015 FIVB “senior” Beach Volleyball World Championships are staged next month at four sites in The Netherlands.
The match will be the third FIVB World Tour meeting between the two teams with each winning once last season. Meppelink and Van Iersel will be competing in fourth international “final four” with two thirds and a fourth to their credit in 12 FIVB together.
Broder and Valjas’s gold medal in Fuzhou was Canada’s first-ever women’s FIVB World Tour title where the Canadians defeated American Olympic medal winners April Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings in the semi-finals and Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude of Germany in the finals. The Canadians have a 12-0 match mark this season.
The first semi-final will be an All-European affairs as 23rd-seeded Barbara Hansel/Stefanie Schwaiger of Austria meeting fourth-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe of Germany. The two teams met once of the FIVB World Tour with the Germans winning last September in the Brazilian Grand Slam in Sao Paulo.
A new duo on the international scene, Hansel and Schwaiger are competing in their fifth FIVB World Tour stop together. The Austrian’s best placement was a ninth together last July in the Gstaad Grand Slam. Hansel and Schwaiger opened the 2015 season by placing 25th in Fuzhou.
The Lucerne Open is the 44th FIVB World Tour event for Borger and Buthe with the appearance in Saturday’s semi-finals their fifth. The pair have three podium placements to their credit highlighted by silver medal at the 2013 FIVB “senior” World Championships in Poland where the Germans lost the finale in three sets to Chen Xue and Xi Zhang. Borger and Buthe were also second last season in Gstaad, Switzerland.