Porec, Croatia, July 1, 2016 - With the “Chase to Copacabana” over, it is now the “fight for finals” for the men’s players on the international Beach Volleyball circuit as the leaderboard is taking shape to determine which teams will qualify for the mid-September SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals.
The SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals, which offers the richest first-place purses in international history with $100,000 awarded to the men’s and women’s winners, will be played September 8-13 at a site to be announced in the coming weeks. The top eight-ranked pairs per gender from the international circuit plus two “wild cards” will advance to the event with a maximum of two teams per country.
With three-plus events left before the September finale, excluding the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where points are not rewarded, the $800,000 Porec Major is the 18th of 21 men’s event on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour schedule with the final three stops featuring “big-point” tournaments in Switzerland (Gstaad, July 5-10), Austria (Klagenfurt, July 26-31) and the United States (Long Beach, August 23-28).
Entering play here Friday at the Porec Major, only one of the 10 teams that participated in the 2015 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals in the United States on Fort Lauderdale beach ln south Florida is ranked among the top eight pairs on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour ranking list. Points to determine the 2016 field began last October with the Puerto Vallarta Open in Mexico where Americans Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena topped the men’s podium.
As a “wild card” entry in Fort Lauderdale, Dalhausser and Lucena are the only team from the 2015 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals men’s field ranked among the top-eight teams on the 2015-2016 international points list with 4,110 points. The Americans trail Poland’s Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak (4,640 points) and Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri of Italy (4,580). All three teams are competing this week in the Porec Major and started pool play Thursday by winning their first two matches each.
Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, who defeated Dalhausser and Lucena in two sets last October in Fort Lauderdale to win the $100,000 first-place prize, are currently 14th on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour ranking list with 3,140. The Brazilians are within striking distance of moving into the top eight as the No. 7 (Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen, Germany, 3,450 points) and No. 8 (Youssef Krou/Edouard Rowlandson, France, 3,290) are not competing this week in the Porec Major.
Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel of Poland (3,280 points), Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain (3,160), Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen of The Netherlands (3,150), Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk of Canada (3,000) and Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg of Brazil (2,850) are also competing in the Porec Major and in position to move into the top eight spots on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour ranking list.
All, except for Fijalek and Prudel, competed in the 2015 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals. Evandro and Pedro defeated Brouwer and Meeuwsen for the Fort Lauderdale bronze medal. After Fort Lauderdale last October in Puerto Vallarta, Brouwer and Meeuwsen started their 2015-2016 international campaign by placing second to Dalhausser and Lucena in the Mexican event.
With the men’s Porec Major reaching it half-way point here Friday with the completion of the pool play matches, here is a “real-time” look at the standings for the SWATCH finale that includes points already earned this week at the FIVB World Tour event.
Rank, Team, Country, Points (*2015 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals participant as a team)
1, Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak, Poland, 4,640
2, Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri, Italy, 4,580
3, Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, United States, 4,110*
4, Tri Bourne/John Hyden, United States, 3,910
5, Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen, Mexico, 3,870
6, Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Latvia, 3,510
7, Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen, Germany, 3,450
8, Youssef Krou/Edouard Rowlandson, France, 3,290
Rank, Team, Country, Points (*2015 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals participant as a team)
9, Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Poland, 3,280
10, Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza, Latvia, 3,220
11, Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Spain, 3,160*
11, Grant O'Gorman/Sam Pedlow, Canada, 3,160
13, Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen, Netherlands, 3,150*
14, Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Brazil, 3140*
15, Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, Canada, 3,000*
16, Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg, Brazil, 2,850*
17, Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Konstantin Semenov, Russia, 2,820
18, Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Italy, 2,760*
19, Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst, Netherlands, 2,540*
20, Esteban Grimalt/Marco Grimalt, Chile, 2,460
21, Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik, Germany, 2,190
22, Christoph Dressler/Thomas Kunert, Austria, 2,170
23, Murat Giginoglu/Volkan Gogtepe, Turkey, 2,140
24, Dries Koekelkoren/Tom van Walle, Belgium, 2,080
25, Alexander Huber/Robin Seidl, Austria, 2,070
26, Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin, Russia, 1,790
27, Oivind Hordvik/Bjarte Usken, Norway, 1,540
28, Nico Beeler/Alexei Strasser, Switzerland, 1,440
29, Jackson Henriquez/Jesus Villafane, Venezuela, 1,420
30, Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse, Qatar, 1,380
31, Christian Garcia/Francisco Alfredo Marco, Spain, 1,260
31, Morten Kvamsdal/Christian Sorum, Norway, 1,260
33, Sean Faiga/Ariel Hilman, Israel, 1,210
34, Isaac Kapa/Christopher McHugh, Australia, 1,200
35, Philip Gabathuler/Mirco Gerson, Switzerland, 1,140
36, Georgios Kotsilianos/Nikos Zoupanis, Greece, 1,130
Here are other top-ranked team that are on the “outside looking in” due to the country quota limit.
Rank, Team, Country, Points (*2015 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals participant as a team)
CQ, Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson, United States, 3,580*
CQ, Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter, Canada, 2,850
CQ, Saymon Barbosa/Gustavo Carvalhaes, Brazil, 2,720
CQ, Matteo Ingrosso/Paolo Ingrosso, Italy, 2,540
CQ, Michal Kadziola/Jakub Szalankiewicz, Poland, 2,430
CQ, Vitor Felipe/Alvaro Filho, Brazil, 2,310
CQ, Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol, Poland, 1,880
CQ, Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Austria, 1,780*
CQ, Michal Bryl/Kacper Kujawiak, Poland, 1,680
CQ, Dmitri Barsouk/Nikita Liamin, Russia, 1,570
CQ, Rihards Finsters/Edgars Tocs, Latvia, 1,530
CQ, Oscar Brandao/Andre Loyola, Brazil, 1,160
CQ, Sebastian Fuchs/Stefan Windscheif, Germany, 1,160