Moscow, Russia, May 26, 2015 - It was a busy day at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Center here Tuesday where 32 Beach Volleyball pairs vied for the final eight spots in the “money” rounds of the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam, the first “big” event on the 2015 FIVB World Tour.
Pairs from seven countries earned a spot in Wednesday’s opening Main Draw round for men as the Moscow Grand Slam also features women’s play. While the men play one round of pool play Wednesday, the women’s Main Draw competitors will each face two matches on the four courts at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Center.
While the women are competing in their fourth international event this season, the Moscow Grand Slam is the third men’s stop this season. This week’s event also marks the 10th visit by the FIVB World Tour to the Russian capital. After hosting the men for events in 1998 and 1999, Moscow has been hosting both genders annually since 2008.
In the top-half of the qualifying bracket, top-seeded Vitor Felipe/Alvaro Filho of Brazil and Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen of Mexico survived three-set upset scares from teams Israel and Greece, respectively. The 12th-seeded Ingrosso twins (Matteo and Paolo) of Italy and 13th-seeded Geir Eithun/Iver Horrem of Norway eliminated lower-seeded pairs from Poland and Turkey.
In Tuesday’s final qualifying matches in the lower half of the bracket, second-seeded Theo Brunner/Nick Lucena of United States, 10th-seeded Jackson Henriquez/Jesus Villafane of Venezuela, 14th-seeded Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol of Poland and 27th-seeded Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri of Italy advanced to Wednesday’s Main Draw.
After pairs from Brazil (1998, 2011, 2012), China (2010), Germany (2009), Latvia (2013) and the United States (2008) captured the first eight Moscow men’s title, Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Konstantin Semenov became the first host country tandem to top the podium after defeating Grzegorz Fijalek and Mariusz Prudel of Poland in the 2014 gold medal match.
Other teams competing for host Russia in the Moscow Grand Slam will be Dmitri Barsouk/Nikita Liamin and “wild card” entrants Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin, who captured the gold medal at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games in China. Like Semenov (208 cm, 6’10”), the 18-year old Stoyanovskiy (205 cm, 6’9”) is one of the tallest players in the competitions. Both Stoyanovskiy and the 19-year old Yarzutkin hail from Moscow.
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).