FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour in Russia for FIVB Moscow Grand Slam

Lausanne, Switzerland, May 25, 2015 — Following last week’s lone women’s only event on its 2015 calendar, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) travels from the Czech Republic to Russia as 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour continues this week for the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam, the first of five double-gender grand slams on this year’s schedule.

Visiting Moscow for the eighth time, the FIVB World Tour stop will be held on the purpose-built site on the sands of Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Centre on the grounds of the historic Vodny Royal Yacht Club.

This week’s FIVB Moscow Grand Slam will see action in both genders starting Tuesday with the semifinals for both on Saturday and the medal matches on Sunday. The tournament format will have a one-day qualification tournament to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments followed by round-robin pool play and a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. Country quota playoffs for both genders, as needed will be held on Monday.

Exploding with the exciting enthusiasm of a new season, a total of 71 men’s teams from 34 countries selected by their national federations and 67 women’s teams from 31 countries selected by their national federations are officially entered in the Olympian-filled field in the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam with numerous athletes teamed with different partners for the 2015 season.

There will again be a second FIVB World Tour event in Russia this year, with the inaugural FIVB Sochi Open being held Sept. 8-13 at the site of the last winter Olympics. Moscow is one of three Russian cities to host a FIVB beach volleyball international event joining Anapa and St. Petersburg. Sochi will become the fourth Russian city to host a FIVB World Tour event.

RUSSIAN HISTORY
Through 2014, Russia has hosted a total of 28 FIVB World Tour events (15 men, 13 women) with Brazil leading the medal count in both genders.  In the men’s totals after 15 events, Brazil has 14 medals, followed by Germany and the USA with six each, Russia with five, Switzerland with three and China , Latvia and Netherlands with two each. With one men’s medal in Russia are Argentina, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

After 13 FIVB World Tour women’s events held in Russia through last year, Brazil leads the medal parade with 14 total medals followed by the USA with nine, China with six, Germany and Russia with four each. Netherlands and Spain have one medal each.

Men’s championship team of the 2014 FIVB Moscow Grand Slam was Russia’s own Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnokov while winning the 2014 women’s gold medal in Moscow was USA Olympians Kerri Walsh Jennings/April Ross. Both teams are entered in this year’s event as well.

WELCOME TO MOSCOW
Moscow is the capital and largest city in Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural and scientific center in Russia and in Eurasia. Moscow has the largest community of billionaires in the world. Moscow is the northernmost megacity in the world and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of over 11.5 million.  Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia. Moscow is the site of the Moscow Kremlin, a medieval city-fortress that is today the residence of the Russian president. The Moscow Kremlin is also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in Moscow.

TEAM RUSSIA
As the host nation, Russia has two men’s teams in the pre-seeded into the main draw and three in the qualification tournament. Russia’s main draw teams are top-seeded defending champions Semenov/Krasilnikov and 24th-seeded, Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin. Men’s teams in the qualification tournament will be Yury Bogatov/Maksim Hudyakov, Serguei Prokopiev/Alexander Likholetov and Ilya Leshukov/Aleksander Margiev.

As the host nation, Russia has three women’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw and two teams in the women’s qualification tournament. Russia’s main draw teams are 22nd-seeded Evgenia Ukolova/Ekaterina Birlova, Ekaterina Syrtseva/Maria Prokopeva and Olga Motrich/Daria Rudykh. Women’s teams in the qualification tournament will be Yulia Abalakina/Ksenia Dabizha and Ksenia Ezhak/Natalia Klimanskaia.

TOP SEEDS
For the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam, top men’s seeds are Russia’s top-seeded defending champions Semenov/Krasilnokov, USA’s No. 2 Phil Dalhausser/Sean Rosenthal, Brazil’s No. 3 Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Poland’s No. 4 Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Latvia’s No. 5 Aleksanders Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Brazil’s No. 6 Emanuel Rego/Ricardo Santos, USA’s No. 7 Tri Bourne/John Hyden, Italy’s No. 8 Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai and Germany’s No. 9 Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik.

For the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam, top women’s seeds are Brazil’s top-seeded Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca, Germany’s No. 2 Katrin Holtick/Ilka Semmler, Czech Republic’s No. 3 Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova, USA’s No. 4 April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings, Brazil’s No. 5 Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Brazil’s No. 6 Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta, Spain’s No. 7 Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez, Germany’s No. 8 Karla Borger/Brita Buthe, Netherlands’ No. 9 Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, and Germany’s No. 10 Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst.

FIVB MOSCOW GRAND SLAM PURSE
The gold medal team in the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam will split $57,000, the silver $43,000, the bronze $32,000 and fourth place $24,000. The semifinals for both genders will be held Saturday and the men’s and women’s medal matches will both be held on Sunday.

FIVB WORLD TOUR BREAKDOWN
The 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour schedule will include five FIVB Grand Slams, the new Swatch FIVB Major Series of four events, six FIVB Opens and a special Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final in the United States. A showcase event will be the $1 million 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Netherlands (June 26-July 5).

A total of 15 countries will host events this year as the 2015 FIVB World Tour also begins the Olympic qualification process with all FIVB World Tour events (except the FIVB World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine 15 spots for each gender that will take part in each 24-team field in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

FIVB WORLD TOUR PURSES
£The FIVB Grand Slam and Swatch FIVB Major Series competitions, all double-gender each have $800,000 in total purses. The total purse FIVB World Championships the Netherlands 2015 will be $1,000,000 and $500,000 total for the Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final which will feature the top eight teams in each gender.

The nine FIVB Open tournaments in 2015, seven double-gender, one men only and one women only, will have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.

FIVB EVENT FORMAT
Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments – whether FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam or FIVB Beach Volleyball Open – are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds. Country Quota playoffs will return as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.

ON THE HORIZON
Following this week’s first of five grand slams on the 2015 calendar with the $800,000 FIVB Moscow Grand Slam in Russia, June’s spectacular schedule starts with the first two $800,000 Swatch FIVB Major Series events (Porec, Croatia-June 1-7 and Stavanger, Norway-June 8-14) followed by a trip to Florida in the United States for the $800,000 FIVB St. Petersburg Grand Slam (June 15-21).

The dynamic month of beach volleyball will conclude with the $1,000,000 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands (June 26-July 5) being anchored in The Hague with pool play and the first two rounds of single-elimination also being played in Amsterdam, Apeldoorn and Rotterdam.

GROWING HISTORY
The FIVB Moscow Grand Slam will be the 318th men’s event since the FIVB began men’s competition in 1987 and the 281st FIVB women’s tournament since they started in 1992.