Lausanne, Switzerland, October 17, 2015 – With the 2016 season starting at the Puerto Vallarta Open (October 6-11) in Mexico, the qualifying process for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games continues with the double-gender $150,000 FIVB Antalya Open.
The second of three open events on the 2015 portion of the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar, the FIVB Antalya Open starts on October 20 and continues through October 25 at the Konyaalt Beach Park and TVF Akdeniz University courts.
The FIVB World Tour is visiting Turkey for the fourth time for men and the first time for women and is expected to see around 50 men’s teams from 24 countries along with 45 women’s teams from 25 countries.
The FIVB Antalya Open is a 32-team, double-gender event. It will start with a qualification tournament for women on Tuesday and for men on Wednesday to determine the final eight spots in the 32-team main draw. This will be followed by two days of round-robin pool play for each gender. The top three teams in the eight pools will advance to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
Women’s pool play will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, and Thursday and Friday for men. There will be two rounds of women’s single-elimination on Friday. The women’s semifinals and medal matches and the men’s first two rounds of single-elimination will take place on Saturday. Sunday will see the men’s semifinals and medal matches.
As needed, country quota playoff matches will be played on Monday for women and Tuesday for men.
TURKEY’S FIVB HISTORY
A total of three previous FIVB World Tour events have been staged in Turkey. In 1996, 1997 and 1998, Alanya hosted men’s stops on the FIVB World Tour prior to this year’s event in Antalya.
Turkey has hosted a total of three men’s FIVB World Tour events. Brazil leads the medal count with six medals, while Argentina, Canada and Norway have one medal each.
ANTALYA
Situated on a steep cliff over the Mediterranean, Antalya is a picturesque city surrounded by mountains. Developments in tourism, starting in the 1970s, have transformed the city into an international resort. With its airport and central location, Antalya is seen as the capital of Turkish tourism.
TEAM TURKEY
As the host nation for the FIVB Antalya Open, Turkey has five men’s teams on the preliminary entry list for this event: Devrim Alibaba/ Kemal Sah, Yasin Baysal/ Ali Osman, Volkan Gogtepe/ Murat Giginoglu, Emir Kayuzlu/ Hakan Gogtepe and Sefa Urlu/ Hasan Huseyin.
Turkey also has three women’s teams on the preliminary entry list: Merve Aktas/ Resmiye Cakmak, Merve Nezir/ Esra Cetin and Tugba Ozdemir/ Burcu Atasoy.
TOP TEAMS
Among the FIVB World Tour regular men’s teams entered for the competition are: Canada’s Sam Pedlow/ Grant O’Gorman, Chile’s cousins Esteban Grimalt/ Marco Grimalt, Germany’s Markus Bockermann/ Lars Fluggen, Israel’s Sean Faiga/ Ariel Hilman, Italy’s Alex Ranghieri/ Adrian Carambula, Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/ Janis Smedins, Latvia’s Martins Plavins/ Haralds Regza, Mexico’s Juan Virgen/ Lombardo Ontiveros, Poland’s Bartosz Losiak/ Piotr Kantor and Spain’s Francisco Marco/ Christian Garcia.
Among the FIVB World Tour regular women’s teams entered are: Argentina’s Ana Gallay/ Georgina Klug, Austria’s Stefanie Schwaiger/ Barbara Hansel, Czech Republic’s Marketa Slukova/ Barbora Hermannova, Finland’s Riikka Lehtonen/ Taru Lahti, Germany’s Katrin Holtwick/ Ilka Semmler, Russia’s Evgenia Ukolova/ Ekaterina Birlova, Switzerland’s Isabelle Forrer/ Anouk Verge-Depre and USA’s Lane Carico/ Summer Ross.
PURSE
The gold-medal team in each gender at the FIVB Antalya Open will split $11,000, the silver $8,000, the bronze $6,000 and fourth-place team $4,500.
ON THE HORIZON
After the event in Antalya, the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour – with placement points counting in the FIVB Olympic Rankings for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games – concludes with the one remaining 2016 FIVB World Tour event on the 2015 portion of the schedule: the Men’s $75,000 FIVB Doha Open in Qatar (Nov. 9-13).
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 have returned as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.