Lucerne, Switzerland, May 15, 2015 - After four near-perfect days of Beach Volleyball conditions on the Lake Lucerne Lido courts, the weather took a turn for the worse for the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Lucerne Open 2015 competition as the opening matches here Friday featured the completion of the men’s pool play.
But the imperfect weather did produce “perfect” pool play results for two teams that had to qualify for the men’s Lucerne Open Main Draw as the pairs of 27th-seeded Alex Ranghieri/Marco Caminati of Italy (Pool F) and 29th-seeded Yaroslav Koshkarev/Dmitri Barsouk of Russia (Pool D) continued to be unbeaten in the competition after winning matches over pairs from Poland and Belarus, respectively.
With both teams playing in the first matches of the day on the outside Lido courts, Ranghieri and Caminati posted a 2-0 (21-18, 21-11) win in 37 minutes over 22nd-seeded Kcper Kujawiak/Michal Bryl of Poland as the weather was 9°C (48°F) with consistent rain showers. With the weather Thursday recorded 14°C (73°F) under partly cloudy skies, the Italians defeated higher-seeded teams from Canada and Germany.
For Koshkarev and Barsouk, the Russians had to play three-sets in their opening match Friday with a 2-1 (18-21, 24-22 and 17-15) win in 52 minutes over 20th-seeded Aliaksandr Dziadkou/Aliaksandr Kavalenka of Belarus. All three of the Russian’s victories were three-setters starting with wins over pairs from Brazil and the United States Thursday.
Combined with a pair of wins each Wednesday, both the Italians and Russians are both 5-0 in the Lucerne Open competition. By winning their groups, both teams are guaranteed a “bye” in the first-round of the elimination bracket that will be played later Friday.
“With this weather, it is great not to be playing another game today,” said Barsouk, a Beijing 2008 Beach Volleyball Olympian for Russia. “As a Beach Volleyball player you have to be ready to play in any type of weather conditions. The weather was not ideal. We were able to handle it against a tough opponent. It was a tight match with the Belarus team and we were able to prevail at the end.”
Other men’s pool winners Friday were fifth-seeded Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain (Pool E) and 10th-seeded Murat Giginoglu/Volkan Gogtepe of Turkey (Pool G). The Turkey pair won all three of their group matches, including a 2-0 (21-15, 21-16) in 32 minutes over seventh-seeded Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter of Canada. By winning both of their matches Thursday over teams from Switzerland and Italy, Gavira and Herrera clinched the pool title and elimination “bye”.
Joining the Italians and Russians as other “surprise” teams in the competition were 26th-seeded Kristo Kollo/Rivo Vesik of Estonia (Pool G) and 28th-seed Alexei Strasser/Nico Beeler of Switzerland (Pool E). Both pairs finished second in their pool with 2-1 records. For Beeler, he is playing in his first-ever FIVB World Tour event.
The US$150,000 Lucerne Open continues with men’s and women’s elimination matches Friday afternoon. Saturday’s schedule is highlighted by the women’s semi-final matches and the men’s quarter-final contests. The men’s semi-finals will start Sunday’s schedule followed by the medal matches for both genders. The winning pairs will each share the $11,000 first-place prizes per gender.