oscow, Russia, May 28, 2015 - With the Canadian women making a “strong” showing at the first three FIVB World Tour events on the 2015 international Beach Volleyball calendar, a men’s team from the North American continent is now making an impression by upsetting the seed order to win their pool here Thursday at the Moscow Grand Slam.
With the third men’s stop on the international circuit being played at the at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Center, only the pairs from Brazil and Italy validated their seed positioning in the pool play portion of the men’s Moscow Grand Slam as Canadians Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk earned a “bye” for the first-round of elimination play Friday by winning Pool C.
Seeded 19th in the Moscow Grand Slam, Saxton and Schalk followed up a win Wednesday over the reigning world champions from The Netherlands to open play Thursday by defeating third-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek and Mariusz Prudel of Poland 2-0 (22-20, 27-25) in a 44-minute morning match.
The Canadians, who defeated FIVB world champs and 14th-seeded Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of The Netherlands 2-1 (13-21, 21-16, 15-11) in a 45-minute match Wednesday, finished Pool C with a 3-0 record after the team from Belarus forfeited their final group contest.
Joining the Canadians “surprise” pool winners due to seeding were ninth-seeded Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik of Germany, 11th-seeded Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson of United States, and 12th-seeded Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain.
Defending their seeds status were second-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, fourth-seeded Emanuel Rego/Ricardo Santos of Brazil (Pool D) and seventh-seeded Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai of Italy (Pool G). Like Saxton and Schalk, the Brazilians and Italians finished their pools with 3-0 records.
With Pool A providing the most excitement featuring Olympians from Austria and the United States along with the Russian gold medal team from the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games in China, it was 17th-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst of Austria that earned the “bye” while Americans Phil Dalhausser/Sean Rosenthal were eliminated from the competition.
For the second-straight day, an American Olympic gold winner was injured as Dalhauser strained his oblique muscle on his left side in one of the final matches Thursday where 16th-seeded Alexander Walkenhorst and Stefan Windscheif of Germany posted a 2-1 (20-22, 21-18, 15-7) in 53 minutes. The gold medal winner at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games with Todd Rogers, Dalhausser confirmed the injury, but wanted to wait to discuss the oblique issue until consulting with his medical staff.
“I am really hurting right now, so let us wait until I feel better to discuss things,” said the 35-year old Dalhausser, who was injured during the first set of the match with the Germans. “Let’s wait to discuss my competition plans for the coming weeks. I need to talk with the doctors to see what to do.”
Dalhausser and Rosenthal had to win the match against Walkenhorst and Windscheif to advance as the Americans had dropped an opening match Wednesday in two sets to Russian teenagers Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Artem Yarzutkin. Dalhausser and Rosenthal started Thursday by defeating Doppler and Horst in two sets.
Defending Moscow Open champions Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Konstantin Semenov were eliminated Thursday afer losing a pair of matches starting with a setback to a Mexican pair before being ousted by Erdmann and Matysik 2-0 (21-15, 21-11) in 32 minutes.
The first “big” event on the 2015 FIVB World Tour, the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam continues through Sunday when the medal matches for both men and women will be played. The first two rounds of men’s elimination play will be staged Friday followed by the quarter- and semi-finals contests Saturday.
After this week’s event, the FIVB World Tour’s first “Major Series” stops are set for Croatia (Poreč, June 1-7) and Norway (Stavanger, June 8-14) before international circuit crosses the Atlantic for the final world championship “tune up” in the United States for the St. Petersburg Grand Slam in Florida (June 15-21).